Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — WALES

School Governors

Mr. Martyn Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what further steps he will take to inform school governors of their rights and obligations under local management of schools.

The Minister of State, Welsh Office (Sir Wyn Roberts): Before I reply to the hon. Member for Clwyd, South-West (Mr. Jones), I hope that you, Madam Speaker, will allow me to welcome the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) to the Opposition Front Bench as this is his first Question Time as Opposition spokesman on Welsh affairs.
We will shortly be distributing to all governors updated versions of "School Governors—A Guide to the Law". This contains a great deal of useful information for governors including advice on managing a school's budget and staffing.

Mr. Jones: The Minister of State was slightly remisss in not congratulating Llanelli on their win over the Wallabies when he congratulated my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies), our new shadow spokesman on Welsh affairs.
Does the Minister acknowledge that there has been a problem with the governors of locally managed schools and grant-maintained status schools which was only recently acknowledged by the Secretary of State for Education with the new Education Bill? Does the Minister agree that being a school governor at the moment is quite a hazardous occupation in respect of liability for health and safety and the Food Safety Act 1990?

Sir Wyn Roberts: Certainly, governors do valuable work. There are 20,000 school governors in Wales and between 12,000 and 13,000 of them were due to be reappointed or to be appointed anew this term. They have a great deal of responsible work, but, according to the reaction that I have received, they are taking their work very seriously and are doing extremely well.

Mr. Richards: Does my right hon. Friend agree that local management of schools has been an outstanding success and that grant-maintained schools will be an even greater success? What measures does my right hon. Friend intend to take to stop local education authorities under the control of Opposition parties from mounting scurrilous campaigns against those schools, and their governors and parents, that are considering applying for grant-maintained status?

Sir Wyn Roberts: Certainly, I agree with my hon. Friend that LMS has been a great success in Wales. Six hundred and fifty primary schools and 200 secondary schools are now locally managed and all schools will be locally managed by April 1995. It is indeed a short step from local management to grant-maintained status. I agree with my hon. Friend that parents who wish to consider grant-maintained status should be given fair play and should certainly not be bombarded by local education authorities. We are taking steps in the Education Bill to ensure that the amount of money spent by LEAs is equivalent to the amount of money that could be spent by a school seeking grant-maintained status.

Mr. Wigley: The Minister must surely be aware of the groundswell of opinion against the provisions that were put forward in the consultation paper in the summer and


the implications that they have for all schools in Wales. May I press him on guidance to governors with regard to special needs education? Is he aware that many governors will not have a background in respect of the special resources that are needed, and that, if they have to make value judgments on the use of available resources, they may not have the necessary backgrounds to reach such decisions? What steps is the Minister taking to safeguard the needs of those who require special education?

Sir Wyn Roberts: There is a later question, as the hon. Gentleman probably knows, about special educational needs. However, over the past four years we have spent£12 million on support and training for school governors in Wales, so they should know about children with special educational needs.

Mr. Ron Davies: May I thank the Minister for the kind words with which he started this Question Time? I hope that he will enjoy my stay at the Dispatch Box as much as I shall.
When the Minister informs LMS schools of their rights, and, incidentally, tries to bribe them into opting out, will he be slightly more honest than he has been recently in his analysis of LEA expenditure? Not all Welsh local education authorities are underspending on education. Why does he not admit that there is no pot of unspent gold, as he suggests? If schools are bribed into opting out, that will be at the expense of the majority of schools in Wales which will not opt out. Why does he not accept that?

Sir Wyn Roberts: There is no bribing whatsoever. Through grant-maintained status we are ensuring that schools get their proper share of the money. The hon. Gentleman must know that local education authorities retain a substantial amount of money to maintain their services and their local bureaucracy. With regard to capital allocations, I have made the point clear again and again that there has been an underspend of 15 per cent. overall in Wales in the amount of capital spent on schools and colleges. There was a similar underspend, although not as large, last year and, indeed, the year before.

EC Funding

Mr. Dafis: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make it his policy to seek objective I status for Wales, or parts of Wales, under the structural funds of the European Community.

The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. David Hunt): May I also add my words of congratulation to the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies)? I think that I am the third Secretary of State for Wales in 13 years and he is the third shadow spokesman in 13 weeks, but I wish him well for many years to come as Opposition spokesman on Wales.
On question 3, I shall of course be submitting to the EC proposals to secure the maximum support for Wales from the structural funds.

Mr. Dafis: I am sure that the Secretary of State recognises, or at least I hope that he recognises, the immense importance of strengthening the structural funds —the only hope for a vigorous regional policy in Wales. Is he willing to undertake to attend the Edinburgh summit

and represent Welsh interests directly and specifically in talks about the importance of the structural funds for the development of the Welsh economy?

Mr. Hunt: So far as the Edinburgh summit is concerned, of course we work through our colleagues in the normal way, but I will personally undertake to do everything possible to secure the maximum possible support for Wales under the structural funds. As the hon. Gentleman knows, such matters are governed by the nomenclature for territorial statistical units, which is known affectionately in the Community as NUTS, and the NUTS classification is very important. Notwithstanding that, I will do my best to secure the maximum resources for Wales.

Mr. Jonathan Evans: Will my right hon. Friend, in putting together his submission in support of aid under the structural funds, draw specific attention to the survey that was published in the Financial Times on 12 November, confirming the excellent record that has been achieved by the Welsh Office in ensuring that Wales is ahead of the league in the whole of the United Kingdom in attracting inward investment throughout the 1980s?

Mr. Hunt: The partnership with the European Community, with local authorities, with central Government and with the Welsh Development Agency has meant that Wales has consistently won record levels of international investment, as the report bears out. Just as the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) and I were at Stradey park on Saturday to watch Llanelli gain a brilliant victory, so Wales wins in the world.

Mr. Barry Jones: I warn the right hon. Gentleman not to strip Deeside of development area status. That would imperil its objective 2 status. Does he agree that this would be the wrong time, during a slump and with rising unemployment, to detract from the assisted area status map of Wales? May I warn him that the steel industry in Europe, Britain and Wales is under severe pressure and ask him what be intends to do to safeguard Wales's steel interests?

Mr. Hunt: In Wales we are proud to have some of the finest steel plants anywhere in the world, with a producitivity to match that of anywhere in the world.
As for assisted area status, I am about to meet a delegation from Clwyd county council about it, and I will of course bear what the hon. Gentleman says in mind.

Mr. Ron Davies: I thank the Secretary of State for his courtesy. I may he the third shadow that he has had to face in 13 weeks, but I assure him that I fully intend to be the next Secretary of State, representing a Welsh constituency.
The fact is that we in Wales need all the help that we can get, from the European Community and from the Government. Wales is now at the bottom of the British wages league. Last week's autumn statement will be a bitter blow. One third of Welsh workers in the public sector are already on low wages, and in effect they now face a pay cut.
Why will not the Secretary of State accept that, with rising unemployment and poverty wages, the last thing that Wales needs is a question mark hanging over its assisted area status in the important belt from Bridgend to Cwmbran—and as my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones) said, beside the Dee estuary?
I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's undertaking to consult, but why does he not give the House an assurance that he will fight for assisted area status in Wales? Why will he not assure us that he will fight for Wales?

Mr. Hunt: I am delighted to hear that the hon. Gentleman intends to remain Labour spokesman for many years to come. I am pleased that the game of musical chairs has stopped, and I wish him well as Opposition spokesman for many years to come.
Since I became Secretary of State, wages in Wales have risen faster than the average in the United Kingdom—[Interruption.]—that is a statistical fact. But I also recognise that there is a longstanding problem in Wales. I want many more high-quality, highly paid jobs to come to Wales. I repeat what I have said about the importance of bearing in mind all representations received on assisted area status.

A470

Mr. Knox: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what plans he has for the improvement of the A470; and what work has been done so far.

Sir Wyn Roberts: Since 1979 over £115 million has been spent on the A470. We have plans to spend a further £120 million including the major improvements shown in the 1992 "Supplement to Roads in Wales".

Mr. Knox: Does my right hon. Friend expect that the whole route will eventually be upgraded to dual carriageway standard? If so, can he give any idea of when that might happen?

Sir Wyn Roberts: There is no economic or environmental justification for upgrading the whole route to dual carriageway standard. Our policy is to undertake selective improvements for safety reasons and to reduce journey times.

Mr. Rowlands: If the economy is to be made to grow by investing in capital projects, is there not a better scheme to extend the A470 than the one from Pentrebach to Cefn Coed? Will the right hon. Gentleman move heaven and earth to bring in the scheme ahead of schedule and get it started in 1993? Will the Minister at least assure us that the development of the A470 scheme will not be the subject of any silly experiments along the lines of private financing or tolling, as foreshadowed in the autumn statement?

Sir Wyn Roberts: The Pentrebach to Defn Coed scheme is one of the bypasses envisaged under the plans that I just mentioned. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the supplement for "Roads for Wales" he will find the time band in which it has been placed. Meanwhile, the draft line side road orders were published in September and draft compulsory purchase orders are expected to be published this month. A public inquiry could be held in the spring of 1993.

Mr. Jonathan Evans: Is my hon. Friend aware that many of my constituents will be greatly relieved to hear that he does not propose to drive a dual carriageway through some of the loveliest parts of mid Wales, where there is clearly no economic demand for such a road. On behalf of my constituents, I ask him for an assurance that the representations made at the presentation in Builth

Wells, concerning the proposed bypass, will be closely considered by his Department before any announcement is made?

Sir Wyn Roberts: I can certainly give my hon. Friend the last assurance that he requested. Consideration is being given to the views expressed following public consultation. I am glad that he agrees that, on environmental grounds, there is no case for upgrading the whole route; nevertheless, as he knows, many parts of it require improvement.

Mr. Alex Carlile: While there is no requirement for a dual carriageway throughout Wales from north to south, will the Minister tell the House by what date we can expect a decent-quality trunk road from north to south Wales? Will it be in this century or in the next?

Sir Wyn Roberts: Certainly we are improving the A470 and the A483. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the considerable improvements that have been carried out. I have mentioned that among our future plans are the Pentrebach, Cefn Coed, Merthyr bypass, the Builth Wells western and eastern bypass, the diversion east of Llangurig to Wern Villa, the Commins Coch bypass, the Lledr Valley improvements and the Llanwrst bypass, with a possible further improvement to the Pontypridd to Coryton section of the A470. We expect considerable progress, in addition to the considerable improvements which have already been carried out.

Council Housing

Mr. Llwyd: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is his Department's latest estimate of the number of people on local authority waiting lists for rented housing; and what is his planning figure for the number of new public sector rented housing units which will become available next year.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Gwilym Jones): Information on local authority waiting lists is not available centrally. Decisions on resources to local authorities following last week's autumn statement, will be announced shortly.

Mr. Llwyd: In view of the large amount of informed opposition to Tai Cymru's recent discussion document, does the Minister agree that the proposal in it—that there should be housing on a development scale of 50 to 200 units, centred in four or five geographical areas of Wales—is utterly unsuited to the needs of rural Wales? Does he further agree that it flies in the face of the purpose of setting up Tai Cymru, which it was said was for local and sensitive development? Finally, does he agree that it would be far preferable to purchase existing housing stock and to refurbish rather than to build?

Mr. Jones: Tai Cymru's consultative process finished on 31 October. I hope that the hon. Gentleman took the opportunity to submit his comments. I know that Tai Cymru is keeping an open mind and will consider fully all representations made to it, as I am keeping an open mind on the matter. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer was able to announce last week a further £38 million to be spent before the end of this financial year and I look forward to that adding about 1,000 new homes for rent in Wales.

Mr. Roger Evans: On waiting lists, can my right hon. Friend explain the other side of the issue and tell us how far Welsh housing stock has increased in recent times?

Mr. Jones: I am delighted to tell my hon. Friend that Housing for Wales and the housing associations have been making superb progress. This year more than 4,000 new homes will be added to the stock, which is a tremendous step forward by Housing for Wales.

Mr. Kinnock: Is not it plain that last Thursday's statement was, in respect of housebuilding, both incompetent and misleading? Is not it obvious that if local authorities must depend on additional sales to generate funds for new building in the middle of a housing slump, new building is unlikely to take place? Would not it have been much better, for the sake of the slump-hit construction industry as well as to meet housing needs in Wales, if the Chancellor had allowed local authorities properly to release their capital assets so that we could get on with some real building?

Mr. Jones: I feel that I may be in a unique position in trying to answer a question from the right hon. Gentleman. I am not sure whether he has previously asked a question since he returned to the Back Benches. I fear that he may have missed the point because the £38 million is to provide some 1,000 new homes. It is extra money provided by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to take the matter forward. The point that he misses about past capital receipts is that all of that money, except that allowed by special dispensation, has been used permanently or temporarily to offset debts that have already been run up.

Mr. Murphy: If the Minister is unwilling to say how many people in Wales are waiting for council houses, may I be permitted to tell the House that between 80,000 and 90,000 people in the whole of the Principality are on council house waiting lists? If capital receipts in the next 13 months are to be used to try to build new houses at a time when it is unlikely that people will want to sell them in any event, what logic is there that nearly £600 million-worth of capital receipts, which are still tied up in our local authority coffers, cannot be used? Is not the Minister's suggestion a crazy nonsense?

Mr. Jones: No. The crazy nonsense is the fallacy to which the hon. Gentleman still clings. Except for the dispensation already allowed for, housing receipts have been used temporarily or permanently to offset the debt that has already been run up. Even after allowing for all redemption, Welsh local councils still have a debt of some £1 billion, which must be paid for by the people of Wales.

Railways

Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he last met the chairman of British Rail to discuss the reduction in services along the north Wales coast main line.

Sir Wyn Roberts: My right hon. Friend last met Sir Bob Reid on 7 September. They discussed a number of issues, including services in north Wales.

Mr. Jones: In his letter to me dated 9 November, the Secretary of State for Wales said that reports that rolling stock from the north Wales inter-city service would be

withdrawn for franchise services were without foundation. However, we all know that during the summer that rolling stock was under considerable threat, as Richard Branson and others were bidding for franchise services. Will the Secretary of State now come clean on the issue? Was there a threat to inter-city services this year as a result of the franchising proposals? Will he give a categorical assurance that those services will continue when the next franchising proposals come forward in 1994 and, if they are to continue, that all services will begin and end at Holyhead?

Sir Wyn Roberts: I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would welcome the privatisation of British Rail and franchising, because it is possible that the north Wales coastal services will do considerably better. The hon. Gentleman knows only too well that direct services from London to Holyhead are to be reduced from three to two—[HON. MEMBERS: "Disgraceful."] Yes, but we do not run British Rail. It is not for us to involve ourselves in operational matters, which are entirely for British Rail. If I were the hon. Gentleman, I should be looking forward to the privatisation of British Rail and to franchising.

Mr. Rogers: When the Minister meets the chairman of British Rail to discuss services in north Wales, will he remind him that the valley lines in south Wales have experienced enormous problems with the lack of capital funding? As a result, they now state that they hope that there will be no demand—

Madam Speaker: Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman is moving around rather geographically.

Mr. Rogers: It is a branch line.

Madam Speaker: Order. I know my Wales better than that. If the hon. Gentleman can stay within the question, he may have a supplementary, but if he is moving I am afraid that he cannot and we must move on.

Dr. Marek: As a north Wales Member, may I ask the Minister whether he accepts that at the last general election almost twice as many people voted Labour as voted Conservative? The hon. Gentleman has no mandate to be a Minister for Wales. In answer to an earlier question, he sought to wash his hands of services provided by British Rail for north Wales. He should make way for somebody else.

Madam Speaker: Order. That was by no means a parliamentary question. We shall now move on to question 7. I hope that the hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain) will do rather better.

Neath and Port Talbot Hospital

Mr. Hain: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement about Welsh Office capital allocations for the planned Neath and Port Talbot hospital.

Mr. Gwilym Jones: In my right hon. Friend's statement on 29 October he advised that capital allocations were available for the next infrastructure works on site. It will be for West Glamorgan health authority to bring forward its requirements for future capital allocations.

Mr. Hain: I shall endeavour to stay within the perimeters of Neath and Port Talbot, Madam Speaker. The Minister has not denied that there is a view among the


mandarins in the Welsh Office that Neath hospital, in which local people take considerable pride, will be downgraded to a new cottage hospital on Baglan moor —centralising trauma in Morriston and maternity in Singleton—thus reneging on a commitment given to the House last year by the Secretary of State. Will the Minister give an absolute and categorical assurance that the £18 million capital allocation for the construction of the new hospital, with all its planned specialties, will go ahead as originally planned?

Mr. Jones: I know of no suggestion that there shall be a cottage hospital for the new provision for Neath and Port Talbot. In addition to my right hon. Friend's statement last year, he specifically said in a statement on 29 October that we remain committed to a new hospital on the site at Baglan. We seek to go further and have asked West Glamorgan health authority to conduct a review into the best balance of services in addition to the hospital at Baglan.

Hospitals, South Glamorgan

Mr. Morgan: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on future hospital provision in the area of South Glamorgan health authority.

Mr. David Hunt: This is a matter at the present time for the health authority.

Mr. Morgan: We in the Cardiff area are concerned about the delay in knowing exactly how many hospitals are to remain open and how many will be closed. As I have received letters from consultants at one of our leading hospitals, Llandough, saying that junior hospital doctors do not have any work to do, the Secretary of State will naturally, I hope, share my concern that the Under-Secretary of State, who is responsible for health matters in Wales, should think of giving up complacency for Lent. There is one big difference between the Under-Secretary and me as the two Ministers responsible for health matters in Wales. If I roll up my right trouser leg, it is to show people—

Madam Speaker: Order. I should appreciate it if the hon. Gentleman remained within the terms of his question.

Mr. Morgan: The point about the future of health provision and hospitals is that they have to be run by people who have a genuine interest in their proceedings and who do not make provision for appointing their own secretaries to the board of the health authority.

Mr. Hunt: The hon. Gentleman is not one of the Ministers responsible for the health service in Wales and he never will be. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary and I have seen in South Glamorgan an increase in expenditure from £57 million in 1978–79 to £218 million this year. As a result, health care in South Glamorgan has improved considerably. The hon. Gentleman mentioned Llandough hospital. It received one of only 36 chartermarks awarded in the United Kingdom; that award is based on the highest standards of service and the high standards offered by the hospital. The hon. Gentleman should rethink what he says before he spouts his script without reference to what is happening on the ground in South Glamorgan.

Mr. Sweeney: How many more people are being treated in Welsh hospitals than were treated in 1979? Is that not the real test of the success of the health service?

Mr. Hunt: We have seen enormous increases in resources, from £57·8 million to £218·3 million. Over the past year alone, the in-patient list in South Glamorgan has come down 12 per cent., and the number of people waiting over a year for in-patient treatment is down 34 per cent. My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the achievements of South Glamorgan. I pay tribute to all those who work in the health service in South Glamorgan, and I ask them not to pay attention to the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) and instead to pay attention to the achievements of the Government and the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Sweeney).

Mr. Michael: If everything is so marvellous, why have wards at Llandough been closed when there are patients waiting for operations? As the question is about future provision, why is it that, since 1987, we have not had a proper plan for the future of hospitals in South Glamorgan, the plan produced then was unsatisfactory and was only partially approved and the planning of health services in South Glamorgan is in such a shambles?

Mr. Hunt: It is not in a shambles. The health authority asked in 1989 whether it might review its strategic plan and that is the review which is taking place. That is why the answer to the original question was that this is a matter for the health authority to determine.

Special Needs Education

Dr. Kim Howells: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what extra resources have been allocated for special needs education in Wales for 1993–94.

Sir Wyn Roberts: It is for local authorities themselves to decide how much to make available for special educational needs, but we are doing all that we can to encourage improved provision. Next year, for example, there will be a 17 per cent. increase in the grants available for training teachers of pupils with special education needs and, for the first time, funding to encourage the integration of children with special educational needs in mainstream schools. That is on top of a parallel initiative under our all-Wales mental handicap strategy for those with severe learning difficulties.

Dr. Howells: Does the Minister know that attempts have already been made to integrate into state schools children who are suffering from one impediment or another, and some have been successful? Throughout Wales, parents of those children are at a loss to understand how funding will be provided in the future, with all the gimmicks and experiments that are going on in self-financing and so on, and are desperate to know what the Government intend to do about what encompasses some of the vulnerable elements in society. Does the Minister agree that children who are afflicted in this way should at least be given an equal opportunity to make progress with their peers?

Sir Wyn Roberts: I agree with the hon. Gentleman's last statement. The whole policy of integrating children with special needs in mainstream schools was initiated by the


Government in 1989. I realise only too well that resources are necessary, but they can be held back by local education authorities or delegated to schools. There is a duty on the LEAs to ensure that, where children are statemented, provision is made to meet their needs. We know that some children are not statemented but have special educational needs. My impression is that the entire education system, in every kind of school—LEA maintained, grant maintained or whatever—is paying special attention to the needs of those children.

Mr. Richards: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Education Bill which was given its Second Reading last week will improve matters for such special needs children and their parents?

Sir Wyn Roberts: I agree with my hon. Friend. The Bill will improve matters by enabling parents to express a preference for a school in the maintained sector, speeding up the assessment and statementing process, extending parents' rights of appeal and setting up an independent appeals tribunal to replace the current system of local appeals and appeals to the Secretary of State. Furthermore, in this coming year we shall spend £1·1 million on training teachers for children with special educational needs.

Mr. Gareth Wardell: Can the Minister advise parents in Wales who believe that their children deserve to be statemented, when they are in classes with those who have already been statemented, and who feel that their children are suffering a tremendous injustice? What would the Minister advise those parents to do?

Sir Wyn Roberts: That is one of the points that I covered on Second Reading of the Education Bill, which is due to go into Committee tomorrow. The Bill deals with parents' rights and it enables parents to have a far greater say about the education of special needs children.

House Building

Mr. Alex Carlile: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many new houses were built by (a) councils and (b) housing associations in Wales in 1979, 1989 and 1991; if he will make a statement on the performance of Tai Cymru, Housing for Wales; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Gwilym Jones: Figures are not available for 1979–80 in respect of new homes. In the remaining two years, local authorities built 301 and 119 and housing associations built 534 and 1,003 respectively. Housing association stock has increased by more than one half since the inception of Housing for Wales in 1989.

Mr. Carlile: On the question of quantity, will the Minister tell the House his excuse for the burgeoning shortage of houses to rent in rural areas of Wales? On the question of quality, will the Minister join me in expressing sympathy to the family of Stanley Gregory, who died on Saturday having been burned in a property owned by Cartrefi Cymru housing association, to which he had been transferred under care in the community provisions? Will he ensure that, in future, those who go from hospitals into the community receive nursing care as part of that care in the community?

Mr. Jones: I join the hon. and learned Gentleman in offering my condolences to the family. I am aware of that sad case, which is being closely looked at by officials of my Department.
On rural housing, I remind the hon. and learned Gentleman that Housing for Wales has contributed £35 million towards meeting housing needs in rural areas, in addition to a further £10 million that has generally come from local authorities. The need for new homes is accepted, but again I must point out to the hon. and learned Gentleman that, since the Conservative party came to power, 126,000 new homes in Wales have been provided, which is an increase of more than 11 per cent., while the population has grown by less than 3 per cent.

Oral Answers to Questions — ATTORNEY-GENERAL

Crown Prosecution Service

Mr. Lidington: To ask the Attorney-General what steps he is taking to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Crown prosecution service.

The Attorney-General (Sir Nicholas Lyell): The Crown prosecution service is continuing to develop best practice on a national basis through the national operational practice initiative. It is continuing to recruit high-quality lawyers and is making substantial progress in the implementation of the recommendations of the working group on pre-trial issues.

Mr. Lidington: I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for that reply. Is he aware of the problems that the CPS has caused to the police service in Aylesbury and elsewhere by its insistence that the police should supply it with lengthy written summaries of tape-recorded interviews? That insistence is causing police officers to spend hours seated at word processors instead of being out on the beat catching criminals. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that that is a waste of time? Will he consider whether the situation could be improved?

The Attorney-General: I understand my hon. Friend's point, but I would strongly acquit the CPS of the use of the word "caused". The use of summaries is standard procedure, but I recognise the advantage of typed transcripts, done by typists, straight off. That can provide tremendous benefits to the criminal justice system, as can the immediate typing of all the papers at that stage.

Mr. Skinner: Is the Attorney-General satisfied that at all times the CPS gets the right people charged? Is he satisfied that its effectiveness and efficiency, which resulted in the three Matrix Churchill people being brought before the court, were correct? Would it not have been more proper for all those Cabinet members to be brought before the court, instead of those three people? Is it not a coincidence that that case managed to last over the general election and was sub judice for all that time, so the real truth could not come out about Iraq-gate? If it had, we would have been faced with a different situation in that general election—where the Prime Minister and all the rest of them would have been referred to as the guilty men, and not the three people in that case.

The Attorney-General: The hon. Gentleman's comments are as riddled with confusion as any of those that we have heard recently. An important feature of our


prosecuting system is that it is independent. The prosecuting authority in the Matrix Churchill case was Customs and Excise, an independent prosecuting authority which employed independent counsel. The independent leading counsel is someone of great experience who is much respected in his profession. He acted throughout with complete integrity—as, I believe, did everyone involved in the prosecution process.

Mr. Wilkinson: Is it my right hon. and learned Friend's belief that the Crown prosecution service is a more reliable prosecuting authority than Customs and Excise, which brought a successful case against Ordnance Technology in the Crown court in Reading last February? It led to the convinction of three directors of that company and two other personnel on charges relating to the transfer of weapon-making equipment, supposedly to Jordan. Will my right hon. and learned Friend examine that matter as well?

The Attorney-General: If I understand my hon. Friend correctly, he is worried about the propriety of a particular case. Although I do not know enough about that case, I think that he may well be able to refer it to the independent inquiry to he set up shortly and chaired by Lord Justice Scott.

Mr. Alex Carlile: Will the Attorney-General confirm that if the Scott inquiry shows there to be evidence of criminal offences by any person, however high his position and whether or not he be a Member of the House, the same level of independence will be applied to possible prosecutions as that about which the right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke earlier?

The Attorney-General: I confirm that absolutely. The prosecuting process in this country is carried out by independent prosecuting authorities without fear or favour and without regard in that sense to whornsover it may have to consider.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the allegations by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) were superbly refuted by leading and junior counsel in the case, who said that everything had been carried out with complete propriety and that Ministers could not avoid their responsibilities? Were not those points made clear by prosecuting counsel when laying the papers before the court?

The Attorney-General: My hon. Friend makes valid points, all of which will be capable of being considered learnedly, independently and impartially by Lord Justice Scott when he carries out his inquiry.

Mr. Fraser: Is not it the duty of the Attorney-General —both as head of the prosecution service and because of his inherent power to put an end to any prosecution, whether brought by the CPS, Customs and Excise or anybody else—to undertake that never again will he allow a prosecution to proceed where he had personally obliged Ministers to sign immunity certificates and where, if the judge had believed what those Ministers were saying, innocent people might have been sent to prison?
Is not the right hon. and learned Gentleman's duty to justice greater than the duty to Ministers to hide behind immunity certificates? Just what is the authority for saying that immunity certificates are mandatory? Surely somebody could use some common sense in these cases.

The Attorney-General: First, I agree with one of the hon. Gentleman's points—that the duty to justice supervenes all others. That said, I was surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman repeating a number of points that, quite frankly, are badly made and ill-founded.
The hon. Gentleman and I frequently ask and answer questions across the Dispatch Box, so with all respect I say to him that he is mistaken in a number of his suggestions. However, all those matters will be capable of being properly investigated by Lord Justice Scott.

Sentencing

Mr. John Marshall: To ask the Attorney-General how often he has appealed against the leniency of sentences since he was granted that power.

The Solicitor-General (Sir Derek Spencer): Since 1 February 1989, when the power to seek leave to appeal against an unduly lenient sentence came into effect, 103 references have been made to the Court of Appeal, including nine references to the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland. As at last Friday, 69 references have been determined. In 56 of those the original sentence has been increased—more than 80 per cent.

Mr. Marshall: Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the Court of Appeal and the Attorney-General have combined to create entirely acceptable sentences that can be applied in future sentencing policy? Does he agree also that the high success rate emphasises the extreme folly of those who opposed the introduction of the new power by this House?

The Solicitor-General: My hon. Friend is right. We hear a great deal from the Labour party about justice, but let us examine the Opposition's record when the provisions passed through the House. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) said that they were "wrong in principle", had been introduced for political purposes, and would impose
political influence and political pressure on sentencing."— [Official Report, 18 January 1988; Vol. 125, c. 692.]
That was an astonishing complaint because the letters that my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General receives asking for cases to be referred include a considerable number from Labour Members. Have they changed their policy in the meantime?

War Crimes Act 1991

Mr. Winnick: To ask the Attorney-General if he will make a statement on the operation of the War Crimes Act 1991.

The Attorney-General: The special unit established by the Metropolitan police is investigating all the allegations made to the Hetherington/Chalmers inquiry, together with other allegations made subsequently to the police. Inquiries are being concentrated initially on those cases offering the best prospects of a useful investigation.

Mr. Winnick: I hope that the 1991 Act will not be a dead letter and that those who should be prosecuted according to the rule of law will be so prosecuted. Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman confirm that under no circumstances will Ministers sign immunity certificates in such cases? Bearing in mind recent events, such an assurance is much needed.

The Attorney-General: I can certainly confirm that if and when the police come forward with a case to be considered by the Director of Public Prosecutions and myself, prosecution decisions will be undertaken precisely in accordance with the code for Crown prosecutors and normal standards.
As for the hon. Gentleman's second point, he repeats a misunderstanding that has fairly wide currency—that to claim public interest immunity in accordance with legal duty is to deny the court a document. In fact, under the system documents are put before the court by prosecuting counsel. The judge then performs a balancing exercise having, if he considers it appropriate—as he normally would in a criminal case—seen the documents himself.

Oral Answers to Questions — OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

Drought, Africa

Mr. Kirkwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he expects to visit the drought-affected areas of the African continent in the next six months; and if he will make a statement.

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Douglas Hurd): My right hon. and noble Friend the Minister for Overseas Development hopes to visit drought-affected areas of Africa again in the new year. She did so last September. We are wholeheartedly exerting ourselves to help the victims of drought and other disasters in Africa.

Mr. Kirkwood: Does not the Secretary of State agree that the 100 mecu currently languishing in Community development budgets should be urgently released? Will he bring his influence to bear at the EC Development Council meeting later this week, to ensure that money is spent on establishing a special plan for African recovery? Surely there is something seriously wrong with the system that allows money to languish when thousands are starving in Africa.

Mr. Hurd: I will certainly try to speed things up. This year, Britain has committed £150 million in humanitarian help to Africa, including £63 million to drought-affected areas. A great deal is being done to help.

Mr. Jacques Arnold: Does not our noble Friend Lady Chalker enjoy a high reputation because of all the work that she is doing to improve our relations with Africa, and is not this country already doing a considerable amount to aid Africa—not least in the important matter of water extraction and the water industry throughout Africa, which is part of the base of the problem?

Mr. Hurd: That is certainly true. I am glad that—contrary to dire predictions from Opposition Members —we have been able to maintain our aid programme in the public spending review. I think that, in the circumstances, most people would regard ours as a very reputable record.

Child Labour

Mr. Bayley: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make it the policy of the Overseas Development Administration to use

the aid budget to seek to eliminate the employment of children in dangerous or unhealthy conditions in recipient countries.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Mark Lennox-Boyd): It is the policy of the Overseas Development Administration to help those children who are forced, through poverty, to work in dangerous and unhealthy conditions.

Mr. Bayley: Is the Minister aware that an increase in the volume of exports of Colombian coal is forcing more and more people in Colombia to buy from the domestic market serviced by small mines? According to a recent statement by the Anti-Slavery Society for the Protection of Human Rights, 900 of those small mines employ children, some as young as five years old.
Does the Minister accept that the Government's policy of electricity privatisation has led to the purchase of considerable amounts of Colombian coal by PowerGen and National Power, and that compulsory competitive tendering has forced local authorities to do the same? Will he make it his policy to use the development budget to support development projects that will eliminate the use of child labour in Colombia?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: We have been informed by Carbocol, the Colombian coal company, that no coal exported to Britain from Colombia is produced through the use of child labour. If the hon. Gentleman has any evidence of the contrary, I shall of course want it to be considered very carefully.
It is very much the Government's policy to use ODA resources to help with the awkward problem of child labour throughout the world. Children are sent to work because of the great poverty that exists throughout the world. All our projects take cognisance of that, and try to improve living standards so that child labour is no longer used.

Procurement Policy

Mr. Fabricant: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what proportion of overseas aid is used for the procurement overseas of British goods and services.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The proportion of bilateral aid commitments tied to British goods and services was 76 per cent. in 1989, 79 per cent. in 1990 and 74 per cent. in 1991.

Mr. Fabricant: Do British manufacturers derive any export benefit from multilateral aid—aid given through the European Commission or, indeed, through agencies of the United Nations?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Certainly. I have just given the overall percentage for bilateral aid; a total of £934 million helped British industry in 1991. We reckon that, over the seven years between 1982 and 1989, every £1 contributed to multilateral aid produced £1·40 for British goods and services.

Aid Programme

Mr. Jon Owen Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the level of the overseas aid programme for the next two years.

Mr. Hurd: As announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his autumn statement, the aid programme for developing countries is planned to rise in 1993–94 to £1,900 million, compared with £1,835 million this year, and then to be maintained at that level in 1994–95.

Mr. Jones: Is the Foreign Secretary aware that today more than 3,000 Somalis are stranded, starving, in a ship in the Red sea? That is a matter of deep personal concern to my constituents in Cardiff who have relatives in Somalia. Is not the right hon. Gentleman ashamed that, on this day, we have frozen our overseas aid for the next two years, effectively saving £75 million next year and £150 million the year after, and cutting our aid budget by 12 per cent. over those two years?

Mr. Hurd: I am told that the refugees to whom the hon. Gentleman refers have now reached Yemen. Our aid to Somalia this year has been substantial—£27 million sterling. As for the total figures, I have received, as no doubt the hon. Gentleman received, many letters protesting against the Government's intention to cut aid by 15 per cent. I do not know where that story came from. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman does. However, it has been completely falsified by events. They show a rise, in cash terms, in aid to developing countries this year; a steady figure, in cash terms, in the remaining two years; and, as regards our total external assistance, including eastern Europe, a rise in cash and in real terms, throughout the three years. In the circumstances, that is a very satisfactory outcome.

Mr. Wells: Is it not true that the increase in the aid budget, which I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing, clearly helps the poorest countries, and the

poorest people in those countries? However, because it is tied to the acquisition of British goods and services and to the employment of British people, does it not help this country out of recession, as well?

Mr. Hurd: Yes, it does have that effect. Although much of our aid is untied, British industry benefits greatly as a result. It is widely felt in the House, even on partisan occasions, that the quality of British aid is high and that it is well targeted. I am delighted that the total agreed in the autumn statement is, in the circumstances, a good one.

Mr. Meacher: Contrary to what the Foreign Secretary said, does he not acknowledge that to freeze the aid budget for two years after 1993 will cut £75 million off aid programmes that had been planned in the first year, and £150 million in the second year, and that that represents altogether about 12 per cent. of the whole aid budget for this year—£225 million? Is the Foreign Secretary aware that the two-year freeze, plus the 15 per cent. devaluation after black Wednesday, will cut the value of British aid abroad over the next three years by no less than a quarter? Is he also aware that the latest cuts represent yet another prime ministerial U-turn and broken promise? At Rio, the Prime Minister promised that he would increase British aid, but it is being frozen and reduced. If he is still Prime Minister at the end of this week, should he not be hanging his head in shame when the European Community Development Council meets?

Mr. Hurd: The hon. Gentleman has juggled rather desperately with figures which even he must admit are a good deal better than he probably expected. As regards his one substantial point, the effect on the exchange rate, he will know that a very large proportion of our aid is calculated and paid for in sterling.

Points of Order

Sir John Wheeler: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. As you know, I very rarely raise a point of order, but I do so today on an issue of considerable importance. May I respectfully ask whether you have received a request from the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), to whom I have given proper written notice of my intention to refer to him this afternoon, to make a statement about issues that he has raised in public on matters that are the proper concern of the Lord Justice Scott inquiry? It has been very much in the style of his recent unsubstantiated allegations on a whole range of topics and of statements that he had made that subsequently have been proved to be false. I refer to what the hon. Gentleman said in this place:
I believe that self-governing trusts … are patently designed to pave the way for the privatisation of the Health Service."—[Official Report, 13 March 1990; Vol. 169, c. 339.]
As the House knows, that is totally untrue. Is there any reason to suppose that the hon. Gentleman's statement in connection with matters to be inquired into by Lord Justice Scott will not also prove to be other than false?

Madam Speaker: I think that I can deal with that point of order. The hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) has not been in touch with me about these matters. As the hon. Member for Westminster, North (Sir J. Wheeler) knows, it is not a point of order, or a matter that the Chair of this House can deal with.

Mr. Paul Flynn: rose—

Madam Speaker: Order. I hope that this is a fresh point of order and not the same point of order.

Mr. Flynn: Yes, it is.

Madam Speaker: Very well.

Mr. Flynn: You will be aware, Madam Speaker, of the long-stated concern of many Back Benchers about the need for parliamentary scrutiny of the secret intelligence service and MI5. There is news today that a committee is to be set up, but the suggestion is that it will not be directly answerable to Parliament. Given today's further allegation that MI5 has been spying on a member of the royal family, is not it crucial that a statement is made in the House and that the body that is established is directly answerable to the House?

Madam Speaker: No Minister or Department has informed me that they wish to make a statement.

Mr. Derek Conway: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Will you confirm the deadline by which the subject for today's Opposition day debate had to be with your office? My understanding is that it was by close of business on Friday. If so, it seems a little puzzling that I have listened over the weekend to various Liberal Democrat spokesmen saying how they would rather debate Matrix Churchill and the Scott inquiry than the subject that has been chosen. Will you confirm that this is not censorship on your part, Madam Speaker, but incompetence on theirs?

Madam Speaker: There has been no censorship on my part; and I have been far too busy over the weekend to listen to the radio or to watch television.

Mr. Max Madden: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. As the guardian of hon. Members's rights, will you, Madam Speaker, deprecate the failure of Departments to answer questions tabled by Members? Last Thursday, I tabled 10 written questions to the Foreign Office and the Home Office about the impact of visas on Bosnian nationals. To date, I have not received even a holding reply. Would it be in order for the Minister speaking in tonight's debate on Bosnia to make it clear whether the 180 nationals who have been invited to this country by the Leeds-based organisation Alert will be granted visas so that they can enter this country for medical treatment and for the other urgent reasons why they need to come here?

Madam Speaker: The hon. Gentleman appreciates that it is up to the Minister at the Dispatch Box to make whatever speech he wishes to make. If he wishes to declare such matters, that is entirely up to him. It would not be for me to withhold any information or statement that a Minister wanted to make. No doubt the hon. Gentleman's point on parliamentary questions will have been heard on the Treasury Bench and he will receive an answer shortly.

Mr. David Lidington: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. May I seek your guidance on how hon. Members can obtain an early opportunity to debate public interest immunity, especially in the light of the public statement made by defence counsel in the Matrix Churchill case that Ministers acted honourably—

Madam Speaker: Order. These are matters for the Leader of the House at business questions on Thursday.

Mr. David Winnick: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. It has been announced that the Scott inquiry will go ahead, but its terms of reference have not been published—I checked with the Library before coming into the Chamber. Will there be some opportunity for the terms of reference to be debated in the House before the inquiry is set up? It will be extremely unfortunate if its terms of reference are rather narrow. The House will not have the opportunity of discussing the terms of reference, and if evidence is submitted Lord Justice Scott and his colleagues can argue that they cannot deal with it because it is outside the inquiry's terms of reference. Will we be in a position to debate the terms of reference and, if so, when?

Madam Speaker: The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point. I refer him to the fact that it is for the Leader of the House to determine whether there will be a debate or a statement on the subject. It is not a matter for the Chair.

Sir Malcolm Thornton: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. You may be able to help me and other hon. Members. I understand what you said to my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North (Sir J. Wheeler) about the competency of the Chair in these matters. However, we are subjected almost daily to a barrage of allegations about hon. Members by the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook). In the past, such allegations have been totally destroyed when he has had to appear on television, for example, to justify them. Can you


help us on the matter? Is there any way in which you can ensure that the allegations are made in the House to enable hon. Members to question the hon. Member for Livingston? If he has something to say, he should say it here where other hon. Members can comment on it.

Madam Speaker: Our rules and procedures are not being abused in any way. The straight answer to the hon. Gentleman is no, I have no authority in those matters.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. In respect of questions about Saddamgate, we appreciate that there will be difficulties about what the Table Office will accept. One of the points I have been trying to get in the form of a question is how many Cabinet Ministers are involved in trying to pervert the course of justice. The Table Office is not very happy about taking—

Madam Speaker: Order. If the hon. Gentleman has a point of order, I shall deal with it. I am not interested in any speeches that he may want to make.

Mr. Skinner: At the end of the day, all questions are a matter for you, Madam Speaker. If the Table Office says no, we can ask whether you are prepared to accept the question. If you are not prepared to accept my question —the way in which you jumped up suggested that you are not very happy about it—may we ask how many Cabinet Ministers are in the Saddamgate loop? That is the vital question today.

Madam Speaker: It very much depends on how the hon. Gentleman phrases questions. To quote a famous phrase, he should try harder.

Mr. Richard Page: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I do not want you to think that I am not interested in the debates on homelessness and on Bosnia. However, further to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Mr. Conway), I clearly heard through the media at the weekened the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown), the leader of the Liberal Democrats, say that he was forced to have a debate on those subjects and not on Iraqgate as he wanted. May we have your assurance that no pressure has been put: on you to prevent a debate on Iracigate? That will expose the scandalous lies that have been—[Interruption.] I withdraw that term.

Madam Speaker: Order. This is getting repetitive. Nobody puts pressure on me, either in the Chair or anywhere else.

Mr. Roger Gale: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Further to the answer you gave the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), may I ask you to clarify one issue? If an hon. Member deals in a distortion of documents, and peddles those distortions to the press, when the documents are clearly going to be the subject of a proper inquiry, will you rule it in order for Conservative Members to table early-day motions relating to that fact and to those distortions?

Madam Speaker: Hon. Members must frame their early-day motions. I shall then look at them carefully.

Mr. David Harris: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. On the question of documents, it is well within the recollection of the House that the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) has made something of a speciality of dealing in leaked documents of one sort or another. Will you advise the House on the proper relationship between an hon. Member and members of the civil service, especially in light of the hon. Gentleman's experience? On one well catalogued occasion, he used a document that had come from a civil servant via his adviser. Is that behaviour to be deprecated or to be applauded by the Chair?

Madam Speaker: The page number of "Erskine May" escapes me at the moment. I am sure that the lion. Gentleman knows that the Speaker does not give such guidance and information across the Floor of the Chamber.

Mr. Jimmy Boyce: Further to the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) about the terms of reference of the Scott inquiry, I raised the same point of order last week and you, Madam Speaker, told me that I had overestimated your powers. I believe that this issue goes to the heart of democracy in this country. If you do not have the power, Madam Speaker, can you advise me, as a new hon. Member, how we can get to the bottom of the matter, given that people are hiding behind the Attorney-General's skirts and he is going to drop the terms of reference—

Madam Speaker: Order. The terms of reference of an inquiry are not a matter for the Speaker.

Mr. Boyce: They should be.

Madam Speaker: If the hon. Gentleman and the House feel that they should be, then by all means alter our rules and procedure and give me that authority which I do not have at the moment—but not today.

Opposition Day

[5TH ALLOTTED DAY]

Homelessness and Mortgages

Madam Speaker: I have selected the amendment standing in the name of the Prime Minister.

Mr. Simon Hughes: I beg to move,
That this House notes the shameful state of housing in Britain and the horrifying total of well over 150,000 families a year now accepted as homeless by local councils; further notes that over 75,000 homes were repossessed last year and that over 190,000 people are now more than six months in arrears with mortgage repayments; deplores the fact that in real terms the proportion of national expenditure spent on housing has more than halved since 1979; recognises that in the Autumn Statement, although Her Majesty's Government has announced a few measures which will assist some of those in need, its proposals are altogether inadequate and have yet again failed to include the release of the accrued £.5·5 billion of local authority capital receipts, higher credit approvals for councils with few or no receipts including those in Scotland, and a nationwide programme of home insulation; believes that the only reliable way out of the recession is a large scale public investment programme of which a central element should be higher capital spending for home renovation and new build; and calls on the Government to introduce such a programme which would rescue the construction industry, boost the general economy and provide real jobs, whilst at the same time ending for many the nightmare of a life in cardboard city, in bed and breakfast accommodation or in a home that is under imminent threat of repossession.
It gives me no pleasure to have to introduce a debate on behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends on housing, homelessness and the mortgage crisis in Britain. I move the motion because, since the general election, the House has not had the opportunity to debate properly the state of housing in Britain. I move it because the housing crisis is a crisis the length and breadth of the country. I move it because, after 13 years of Tory Government, all their promises have been seen to be shallow and hollow and millions have suffered as a result.
In 1983, the former right hon. Member for Finchley, now Baroness Thatcher, said and had printed in the Conservative party manifesto for that year:
Our goal is to make Britain the best housed nation in Europe.
Nine years later, I wonder how far she believes that we have moved towards that goal.
The majority of people who come to Members' surgeries—and you, Madam Speaker, will be as aware of this as any other Member of this House—come with housing problems. It is clear to them that housing is the most fundamental issue that a Government must address. It is a kind of fundamental human right.
Housing is a moral issue as well as a practical issue. The Catholic bishops conference stated in 1985:
First of all, housing is a moral issue. Decent physical accommodation is a basic need and not a luxury; a right, not a concession.
Another quote sums up quite well how important housing is in the spectrum of policies that concern us all:
Housing is the greatest of all social needs. It is the first priority among social services. Even the best schools, clinics,

hospitals, playing fields and libraries are something of a mockery to those thousands of families who have no decent home of their own.
That was a quotation from the then Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, to the Tory party conference in Blackpool the year after I was born. Everyone of right judgment would agree with Harold Macmillan, and it is a tragedy that the 13 years of Tory rule have not dealt with that agenda in a way that the people of Britain need and would have wished.
We could look at any of the last four Conservative manifestos, but perhaps we should concentrate on the last but one Tory manifesto in the middle of the period in the 1980s which encouraged and pushed people into buying even though one had always understood that it was Tory policy to encourage people to choose—in this case, to choose whether to rent or to buy. The 1987 Tory manifesto stated:
Housing is the biggest single investment that most people make, whether in money or in time, skill and effort. In the last eight years, as a result of our policies, we have seen a dramatic increase in home ownership. In the next five years we will complement that with policies designed to improve the supply and condition of the rented housing stock.
Four years after the goal of making this country the best-housed nation in Europe, other targets were set—other targets which also have abysmally not been met.
On 4 February 1992, the Minister for Housing and Planning, whom my colleagues and I respect and welcome to his job, when speaking in the "Roof" debate, which we both did, just before the general election, said:
The goal has to be a decent home for everyone in the tenure that he or she wants and at the price that he or she can afford.
There is a consistency about the rhetoric. There is also, tragically, a consistency about the practice.

Mr. Derek Conway: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way so early in his speech. The House will accept the sincerity of his comments and of the motion. While he is dealing with consistency and manifesto content, will he tell the House whether his party still stands by the pledge that was given in its manifesto in the recent election to scrap mortgage interest relief? Does he agree that if that pledge were implemented, and if it is still held strongly by his party, it would add to the misery of many millions of home owners today?

Mr. Hughes: Interventions are often predictable, and interventions that are culled from Tory central office briefings are more predicatable. I not only predicted but welcome the opportunity to deal with a distortion of the truth. I shall deal with that now because the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Mr. Conway) and his colleagues might otherwise continue to press me, thinking that I am not dealing with that matter straight away.
My colleagues and I have had a very clear view, and it is supported by all informed opinion, no matter whether it is professional from the housing sector, from the Confederation of British Industry, from housing charities or from the most famous source of all, the inquiry chaired by the Duke of Edinburgh, and that is that a system of tax relief that advantages those who purchase over those who rent is unfair and should be replaced as soon as possible in the fairest possible way.
What my colleagues and I proposed at the election was very simple. It was not the abolition of mortgage interest


tax relief; it was for the future and for those who have not yet bought the replacement of that form of tax relief by a different form of tax relief, which we called housing cost relief and which would be available to those who bought and to those who rented alike. We have never proposed abolition. We have proposed doing what all informed opinion argues should be done, which is to move to a fair system of assisting everybody to acquire a home of the sort that they want when they want.

Mr. Conway: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Hughes: I will not give way again, because I hope that the answer was not only comprehensive but that it will allow the hon. Gentleman to understand our policy and not distort it.
Conservative policies of the past 13 years have resulted for many in homelessness or old, cold and damp housing, and, worse in recent years, the increasing risk to those who have bought that their homes will be repossessed over their heads. That blight affects all parts of the country and people of all ages and backgrounds. Whether I talk to my hon. Friends the Members for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) and for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace), who are from one of the most remote parts of the north of Scotland in rural Britain, my hon. and learned Friend from rural mid-Wales, the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile), my hon. Friends from the south-west, whether in citiies such as Bath or Truro or in rural communities such as north Conwall and north Devon, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton), or my colleagues on the council in the London borough of Southwark, the problem is essentially the same. There are queues of people who cannot be housed and queues of people who, although housed, do not think that they will be able to stay in their housing either because it is unfit or because they fear that they will not be able to keep up the payments for the home which they have been persuaded to buy.
Young people and others on the streets of cities such as London are the most visible victims, but there are many other invisible victims of the housing crisis. Today, my colleagues and I want to show that there are in this House people who understand the severity of the crisis and who believe it possible, given the political will and within the term of one Parliament, to ensure that the goals expressed over the years are achieved and that everyone in Britain has a home at a price he or she can afford.
I shall deal briefly with the record. How many houses are there; are we meeting the need? The statistics are clear. The most recent figures on house building starts and completions were issued by the Department of the Environment in November this year. They show that starts in Great Britain in the past 10 years have decreased from 194,000 to 160,000—lower than ever before. Completions have fallen from 175,800 to about 167,000—lower than ever before.
The National Council of Building Material Producers, in its October bulletin on the state of the building industry, says:
There are ominous signs that the industry is now moving into a deeper recessionary phase and that the situation is very much worse than had been anticipated in our February survey. The autumn state of trade survey reflects the appalling state of the construction industry.
The number of jobs in all parts of the industry has fallen too. Since July 1989 the Federation of Master Builders has

lost 260,000 construction workers. A quarter of the skilled work force is out of work, and apprenticeships are down by 50 per cent.
We are not building the necessary houses, and on current projections there is no prospect of our doing so.
What has happened meanwhile to the number of people wanting property? The most objective statistics are those for households accepted as homeless. Record numbers of such households exist. In England, in the second quarter of 1992, there were 34,840. In London, in the second quarter of 1992, 9,400 households were accepted as homeless and there were more than 10,000 in other English metropolitan areas. In the same period 62,780 households were in temporary accommodation—6,500 more than a year ago; 11,000 households were in bed-and-breakfast accommodation.
Last year more than 150,000 households in the United Kingdom were accepted as homeless, and about 1,250,000 were on waiting lists. Probably another 750,000 households need somewhere, but are staying with family or friends on settees or on floors. The census carried out a year ago counted just under 3,000 people sleeping rough, and at the same time a quarter of the housing stock is deemed unsuitable for human habitation, as defined by an Act of Parliament introduced by this Government.
England, Scotland and Wales exhibit similar characteristics. Increases between 1979 and 1989–91 are recorded in all three countries. In 1979, in England, about 55,000 were accepted as homeless; in 1987, the relevant figure was 109,000; and in 1991, 150,000. In Wales, the figure rose from between 4,000 and 5,000 to more than 6,000, and, in Scotland, from 7,500 to more than 10,000. These are not just statistics: they are people and families among the most vulnerable groups in society, and we all too regularly hear tragic stories of people in just such categories as these.
Of course, during the eighties, many people took the Government's advice and bought. They decided to avail themselves of mortgage interest tax relief and became owner-occupiers. What has happened to them? So far, 1992 has been—and is likely to continue to be—the worst year for house price reductions since records began. The transaction volume—the number of properties bought and sold—is the lowest since 1974, when far fewer people owned their homes.
Mortgage rates and mortgage repayments are low—no doubt the Minister will tell us that they are the lowest for 20 years—but, with the fears surrounding the prospect of purchase today, many people now will not buy.
The worst fear is that of unemployment. According to every projection, official unemployment is soon likely to rise to well over 3 million and people are not likely to buy if they do not think that they will have the money to pay for their house. They fear that the house price will fall below the value of the mortgage. One in five of the people who bought during the past five years now owns a property which is worth less than they paid for it. That is hardly a good investment, although one that has been explicitly encouraged by Tory policies.
As of June, according to the most recent report of UBS Phillips and Drew, there were 1·5 million households in the debt trap, which is one seventh of all households with a mortgage. The Bank of England estimates that 1 million people are in that position and have an average debt of more than £6,000 on their property.

Mr. Jonathan Evans: The hon. Gentleman referred to the UBS Phillips and Drew survey. He is aware, of course, that earlier in the year a UBS Phillips and Drew forecast was that there might be a 14 per cent. increase in house prices next year. One of the fears was that that might start too much of a sustained rush back into owner occupation. The picture that the hon. Gentleman paints, which reflects the concerns of many home owners, must be seen within the context of the survey he quoted, which also said that that situation might quickly turn round.

Mr. Archy Kirkwood: We have heard that before.

Mr. Hughes: Yes, as my hon. Friend says, we have heard that before: we have heard all too many promises about green shoots and things turning round.
I have read the whole of the most recent survey, which makes it abundantly clear, in black and white, that the prospect is that things will get worse and not better in 1993. That was before the autumn statement, which I shall deal with later. The survey states that, at best, things might improve for some people in 1994. I hope the hon. Gentleman does not dispute what the survey says.
The survey also states that confidence in the housing market is at an all-time low. I do not think that there is any dispute about the fact that all those people who were encouraged to buy are now in as bad a position as many who stayed in the rented sector.
To put the most unpleasant icing on this unpleasant cake, one of the saddest things that I have read was in a law report in The Times in August. The headline read, "Children of mortgage defaulters have no right to be rehoused." If one fails to keep up mortgage payments, one can be declared to be intentionally homeless and cannot therefore be housed by the local authority, which would otherwise have a duty to house people who were on the streets.
Our last major indictment is on debt. The right hon. Lady who was, until recently, the Prime Minister of this country for far too many years said that she was in favour of family life and against debt. What has happened to debt which is the product of house purchase, which is normally the most expensive purchase that anyone makes? In the early 1980s, personal debt was about 55 per cent. of the annual disposable income of adults in Great Britain; it is now 114 per cent. of disposable income. At the same time as the number of people waiting to be housed has risen, so the number of people in debt with their properties and likely to remain so has risen. Many of them bought under the right-to-buy scheme initiated in the 1980s. They are in as bad a state as the rest, with unexpected capital, service, and sinking fund charges to pay. Having bought council stock from a council whose tenants they had been for years, they now find that they cannot keep up the mortgage payments either.
All those things are happening while around us tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of empty properties lie waiting to he used.
Tory policy in relation to tenants and owner-occupiers could be summarised so far as a double whammy. It is now in danger of becoming a triple whammy because a potentially final knockout blow is about to be struck. Next April, people in housing will have to pay a council tax, and the bills of many people who pay a poll tax may go up by

50 per cent. The council tax about to be brought in by the Government will make the properties to which many people have hung on through the bad times impossible to hang on to any longer.
It is not surprising that the Government's policies have not lived up to expectations because their expenditure on housing as a percentage of our national wealth has dropped phenomenally. When the Government came to power, we spent about £11·5 thousand million on housing; we now spend less than £6 thousand million. The Minister cannot argue that such a large proportion of people have bought their own homes that the percentage is bound to go down. He knows that the number of people who have bought their own homes has not doubled in the past 10 years and that, while the budget on housing has been slashed, expenditure on health, law and order and social security as a proportion of our national wealth has gone up substantially. The Government cannot expect people to be adequately housed when they cut the nation's housing budget from 2·7 per cent. to 1 per cent. of gross domestic product—a cut of 62 per cent., which is larger than the cut in the budget of any other of the Government's public expenditure programmes.
Not only politicians but many of our constituents were hoping that, at the Government's first opportunity since the election, they would have realised the urgency of the problem. Even Conservatives were hoping that, and many local Conservative associations submitted motions on housing to the Tory party conference, among other things, urging the Government to remove controls on local authorities' receipts. Motions from north Cornwall, Taunton and Honiton, among others from the south and from the north, said that the £6 billion or a little less from the sale of council properties should be used. The Confederation of British Industry, Shelter and all the opposition parties argued for it.
However, the autumn statement failed adequately to respond. On housing, it started by stating the obvious. The Minister said that housing and the construction industry had faced particular difficulties in the past two years, and then made some announcements. Although there is extra money, two obvious comments can be made about the £700 million plus which the Government committed last week. First, it is simply a drop in the ocean; and, secondly, it is a con because much of the money that has now been given has been taken away from programmes for the following two years.
A simple, objective analysis was made in the weekend press. The Guardian on Saturday said:
The Chancellor's Autumn Statement brought some cheer to home buyers but fell far short of the radical moves which many had hoped for.
The CBI said:
Capital receipts are also unevenly distributed and it is too early to assess the effects of the relaxation of the rules … on individual authorities.
The Association of Metropolitan Authorities said:
On capital receipts we arc told we cannot spend the money we raised when the property boom was in progress but we can spend anything we can raise now the boom is past and gone. Such freedom is not going to lead to much rejoicing in the coalfields and the conurbations.
Last week the Government responded to the call for the release of capital receipts—but which capital receipts? Only those from 13 November 1992 until 1 January 1994, predicted receipts the Government say are worth about £1·75 billion. Putting aside the fact that most Government predictions over the past few years have been miles from


the truth, there is not much point in saying that anyone who buys now from a local authority—and they might be mad to do so—will see their purchase money spent by that authority to increase the lowest ever amount of local authority building. As the AMA press release made clear, the capital receipts that were accumulated when people were buying because the market was good are still frozen in the bank. In England and Wales they are called receipts, while in Scotland they are called credits, but the result of the announcement is just the same.

Mr. Bernard Jenkin: I can see how the release of capital receipts would benefit my constituency in which there have been many council house sales and where we have had to tackle an acute but not large problem of homelessness. However, I am slightly at a loss to see how it would help the hon. Gentleman's constituents, because his local authority is already £0·9 billion in debt.

Mr. Hughes: The hon. Gentleman touches on the important problem of how to render equal treatment to local authorities, given that the right to buy is exercised much more in areas where there are more houses than high-rise flats. He cites a good example because my authority has about 60,000 properties, the largest number of any London authority. They are mainly flats, and many of them are high-rise flats which do not sell as well as traditional council housing.
The subject is complicated and I shall not do the hon. Gentleman the injustice of pretending that it is simple. There are various ways to account for public expenditure capital receipts and to attribute the money to the accounting budget in terms of either the Government planning total or the public expenditure borrowing requirement. It is, however, possible to arrange the collection of receipts and the distribution of local authority rights to borrow to give a fair distribution that responds to the needs of local authorities.
My hon. Friends and I, whether we represent urban or rural constituencies, argue for a formula that will fairly distribute for housing renovation or repair the money that is currently locked in local authority coffers or banks. Of course, some of that money may already have been spent. It is quite possible to do that without exceeding the Government's public expenditure total of £45 billion. The Minister and I and others have had long debates about that. I shall give the hon. Member for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin) an example. We could retrospectively legislate to allow receipts prior to this financial year to be counted outside the public expenditure total. It would have no effect on the Government total for the current year or on their projections for the year ahead. The issue is complicated, but there is a solution and the Government should find it.
The Government have given £750 million to housing associations to buy empty and repossessed properties and it is reckoned that about 20,000 such properties will be bought. However, the con is that, although the Government previously promised the Housing Corporation £1·92 billion for 1993–94, that sum has now been reduced by £133 million. For the following year, they previously promised the Housing Corporation £1·77 billion, but that has now been reduced by £190 million as well. There is money to bring back 20,000 properties into use, but it has been found at the expense of meeting the

housing needs of Britain in 1993 and the years to come. If that is not a con, what is? It is also sad that the rough sleepers initiative, which was supposed to meet the needs of those at the acute end of the housing crisis, has also been cut as a result of the autumn statement.
My party has argued a consistent case for many years. It is that the only way for Britain to be adequately housed is for us to invest in it, led from the public purse by those in charge of the Exchequer and Ministers in spending Departments. We repeat that call today. Let me put it simply, because the arguments have been well made.
There should be a large increase in public expenditure, specifically to fund house building and house repairs. It is good value for money, and it not a foolish way to conduct public accounts. We should cut the uniform business rate as that will allow some businesses to put money into housing as well. We should have a stable interest rate policy so that people feel encouraged to buy, in the knowledge that they will not be penalised in the years ahead. We should invest in training and in keeping people in work so that the construction industry can recover.
Perhaps most acutely now, there should be a new element of public finance, a subsidy that would allow people in difficulty to keep their homes or perhaps convert from mortgages to rents. It is entirely possible—and we have put out figures to show this—to start turning the corner of Britain's housing crisis. Our indictment of the Government is that, over the past 13 years—and they cannot blame anybody else because they have been told over and over again—they have, worse than not listening and failing to act, condemned millions of people in a rich and civilised country to conditions that are not only unsatisfactory but often inhumane.
Of all elements of policy, it is this policy and record of which the Government should be most ashamed. I am sad that they have so far given no adequate answers. I hope that now they are at least embarrassed enough to do something about the crisis before many other people suffer as all too many have already done.

The Minister for Housing and Planning (Sir George Young): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
notes the Government's continuing commitment to housing policies designed to ensure that a decent home is within reach of every family, and in particular to promoting the growth of owner-occupation, widening choice for tenants, and improving value-for-money and targeting of public expenditure; and especially welcomes the measures announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Autumn Statement which—consistently with the need to maintain tight control of public spending in the interests of the economy and the taxpayer—will contribute to stabilising the housing market, will increase the supply of social housing thereby helping homeless families, and will promote investment in renovation of run-down council estates.
The Government welcome this opportunity to debate housing. As the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) said, it is an important subject to millions of our citizens. The Government are happy to explain and defend their record on housing.
Last Thursday, while most of us were listening to the Chancellor's autumn statement, someone was drafting the motion before the House, a serious motion but one drafted with a strange mixture of Sun headlines and Guardianprose. As I hope to show, all the people mentioned in the


motion have reason to welcome the measures in the autumn statement. Indeed, I see that, in a release last Thursday, Shelter said:
Shelter strongly welcomes Government initiatives to provide more homes.
That shows that, while Shelter regularly urges us to do better, it recognises progress when it sees it.
By contrast, the rather grudging recognition in the motion—
although Her Majesty's Government has announced a few measures which will assist some of those in need"—
does less than justice to the scale of the Government's response last week to the case for housing.
Let me set out those whom the hon. Gentleman has identified in the motion. They include those sleeping rough, those in "bed and breakfast accommodation", those
accepted as homeless by local councils",
those in difficulty with their mortgages, those in housing in need of improvement and the construction industry. Every hon. Member shares his concern for those groups and much was already being done to help, but we plan to do better.
Let me start with the most visible aspect of homelessness—rough sleeping. In a civilised society, no one should have to sleep rough. Over the past three years, under the rough sleepers initiative, we have made available £96 million to provide 900 hostel places, 2,200 places in permanent housing for those in hostels to move on to, and 700 places in flats and houses leased from private landlords.
Voluntary organisations estimated that, before the initiative began, more than 1,000 people were sleeping rough in central London. Their most recent count on 5 November showed that just over 400 people were sleeping rough, of whom fewer than 60 were under the age of 25. Many of those remaining will be helped by the initiative under way at Lincoln's Inn Fields to provide accommodation for them and, one hopes, to restore that open space to an attractive park that can be enjoyed by Londoners.
The rough sleeping initiative was to have ended on 31 March next year, but the autumn statement announced further resources to provide continuing help to rough sleepers. A further £86 million will now be made available to enable the excellent voluntary organisations, which are managing the programme, to build on their achievements and to drive the momentum forward to make it unnecessary for anyone to sleep rough. To project that funding as a cut does less than justice to the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey, because the hostels and permanent accommodation are, of course, still there. They will remain available in the forthcoming period. What is happening is that we are providing an extra £86 million over and above the resources originally planned. Moreover, I will shortly be announcing details of this year's cold weather shelters, which will open in a fortnight and which will provide accommodation for people who would otherwise have to sleep rough in central London this winter.
Even before the autumn statement the numbers of those in bed-and-breakfast accommodation had been falling. No one is in favour of it as a temporary form of accommodation. I see it as a measure of last resort. Many local authorities, to their credit, manage not to use it at all.

In the past year the number of homeless families in such accommodation has gone down from 13,000 to 11,080. As a percentage the number is down from 24 per cent. to 18 per cent. In London the decrease has been more marked —from 8,110 to 5,870.
Those in bed-and-breakfast accommodation have more reason to welcome the autumn statement than any other group because of the way in which the 20,000 extra homes to be bought between now and the end of March compares with the figure of 11,080 who are currently in that accommodation. Those in bed and breakfast and other temporary accommodation will be rehoused more quickly as a result of the £630 million to be spent in England in the next four months. With the private finance that we plan to lever in, I expect the result to be a £1 billion package for recovery in the housing market.

Mr. Nick Raynsford: Will the Minister confirm that, at current rates of repossession, the number of home owners who are likely to lose their homes between now and the end of March will probably be well in excess of that 20,000? Will he tell us how there is any hope of significantly reducing the numbers in temporary accommodation when there is a huge additional demand to be met from home owners facing repossession?

Sir George Young: The hon. Gentleman knows that the number of court actions entered for repossession has fallen sharply by about 32 per cent. in the past year. The Council of Mortgage Lenders reckons that about 55,000 repossessions have been avoided as a result of the measures it introduced in December.

Mr. Simon Hughes: The Minister quoted Shelter's reaction to the autumn statement and gave a litany of figures. What does he say to Shelter's comments in today's press release on rough sleepers, entitled "Government cuts in help for people sleeping rough. A matter of life and death"? It stated:
The Government has announced a cut of £5 million in help provided for the growing number of people sleeping rough on the streets of Britain … The 13 per cent. reduction … from £38 million to £33 million was revealed by the Department of the Environment on Friday morning, less than 24 hours after the Government's Autumn Statement".

Sir George Young: The hon. Gentleman is aware that the rough sleeping initiative was originally devised as a three-year programme and no provision was made in the public expenditure survey for any money after 31 March. We have found fresh resources to keep that initiative going and against that background it is misleading to allege that there has been any reduction in expenditure. Planned provision of help to rough sleepers has been increased.
On the question of the extra 20,000 homes to be made available, I am concerned—other hon. Members may share my concern—at the lack of mobility within the social sector of housing. New accommodation tends to go directly to those in temporary accommodation. It would be possible for an existing council tenant to move into the new accommodation and then to move a homeless family into the accommodation thereby released. A council tenant who chose to move would lose his right to buy, but he might be prepared for that if it meant that he could live in a more attractive property than his present home. I want the new stock that is acquired to be used to promote


mobility. There should be more transfers for existing tenants where the scope for mobility within a council's stock is limited.
Of course, councils and housing associations must consider the issue in the light of local circumstances and they must take account of people's preferences. They should not assume that people are not prepared to move voluntarily outside the council sector if that would get them better houses.
I have been in touch with the National Federation of Housing Associations, the Housing Corporation and the Council of Mortgage Lenders. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment met mortgage lenders and the chairman of the Housing Corporation again this morning, when they underlined the importance that we attach to taking as many properties as possible off the market through the initiative. I am pleased to say that those lenders present confirmed that they would play a full and constructive part in the initiative. They are confident of responding to the challenge that the Government have set them and of providing the target number of homes.

Mr. Jonathan Evans: My hon. Friend referred to his meeting with the Council of Mortgage Lenders. Did he also discuss our right hon. Friend the Chancellor's announcement last week of a reduction in interest rates and the apparent difficulty of some mortgage lenders in passing on that benefit to home owners, sometimes deferring it for many months?

Sir George Young: I was not at that meeting, which was attended by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State. From the press statement issued after that meeting, I understand that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor reminded lenders of the importance of passing on interest rate reductions as quickly as possible. I understand that shortly after the meeting the Halifax announced a welcome reduction in its mortgage rate.

Mr. George Howarth: I am anxious to pin down the Minister on one point. He is suggesting that the scheme that the Chancellor announced in the autumn statement to create an additional 20,000 properties to rent should be used in some way to facilitate mobility in housing. My understanding is that housing associations are required by statute to operate an allocation procedure and that most allocations are zoned to a particular location. Without specific Government intervention to ring-fence the properties for a national mobility scheme, I cannot envisage how the Minister's suggestion can work in practice.

Sir George Young: The hon. Gentleman is making rather heavy weather of this matter. The housing associations will buy 20,000 properties. In the normal course of events, they would give the nominations to local authorities, which would then nominate families currently in bed and breakfast or temporary accommodation. My suggestion is that the housing associations should continue to give the nominations to local authorities, but that instead of them nominating people in bed and breakfast and temporary accommodation, they should offer transfers to existing tenants. Those people could move into the new homes, if that is what they want, and the homeless

families could move into the local authority stock thus vacated. That would improve mobility in the social housing sector. It is certainly difficult in London to get a transfer unless one has strong grounds. My suggestion would encourage transfers within local authority stock and also within housing association stock—

Ms. Glenda Jackson: Will the Minister give way?

Sir George Young: Yes, but for the last time as I am anxious to make progress.

Ms. Jackson: My local authority has an inadequate number of two and three-bedroom houses, so the problem of families transferring would not be alleviated by the 20,000 properties to which the Minister referred. Indeed, inadequate properties for the size of family groups are endemic.

Sir George Young: The hon. Lady is making heavy weather of this matter. The whole point about the package announced last week is that the housing associations and local authorities should consult and the stock acquired by the housing associations should be of the sort that local authorities want—the right configuration and size to meet the needs of their areas. It is important that there is close liaison between housing associations and local authorities to avoid the mishmash to which the hon. Lady refers.
Against the background of an extra £597 million for the Housing Corporation this year, I hope that the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) will have the decency —for I believe him to be a decent man—to admit that the rumour to which he referred in Committee last Tuesday, that the Conservative party might abandon its manifesto commitment to provide 153,000 homes through the Housing Corporation over the next three years, was ill founded. The figure will rise by 12,000 to 165,000.

Mr. John Battle: The Minister refers to this year's commitment, but he will recall the Conservatives' clear manifesto pledge of money over three years ago. Is the third year absolutely guaranteed?

Sir George Young: There is a lot of battle smoke around. However the hon. Gentleman looks at the figures, he will find that there is more money for the three years covered by the manifesto—an increase of £597 million this year, with a decrease in the following two years of £155 million and £191 million. That represents an increase, and extra homes are being provided in the early part of the period in question. If the hon. Gentleman wants to intervene again to admit that our manifesto is being more than honoured, I shall be happy to give way to him.
Conditions for tenants on many council estates are unacceptable. The autumn statement made it clear that our popular programme of housing action trusts can continue. Our expenditure provision for next year will allow the momentum of the HAT programme to be fully maintained. That will allow the establishment of three further housing action trusts to follow those in Hull, Waltham Forest, and the successful ballot in Liverpool. I am sure that will be warmly welcomed in areas where housing action trusts have already begun work or are under consideration. The feasibility work on Castle Vale in Birmingham and the Bow estate in Tower Hamlets is largely complete and I expect to make decisions on ballots shortly.
There will be more resources for the estate action programme. The amount available in 1993–94 will be £356 million, which is £16 million more than this year. On current practice, that expenditure will allow us to fund 135 of the 270 schemes that authorities are anxious should go forward. However, the capital partnership approach announced last Friday will enable us to spread resources even further. The more that authorities contribute from their capital receipts, the higher the number of schemes that we will be able to include in our programme.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Will my hon. Friend the Minister favourably consider the scheme submitted by Morecambe, which has a substantial housing need?

Sir George Young: I am delighted that that popular clement in the Government's housing policy has won such favour in a constituency adjoining that of my hon. Friend. I will be happy to send my hon. Friend details of the HAT programme and the procedure that must be observed if a trust is to be established in her part of the country.

Mr. Nirj Joseph Deva: I welcome the prospect of greater mobility and extra funding that my hon. Friend's new scheme will introduce, but Isleworth council is encountering considerable problems because of the way that the points system is used to allocate council housing needs. The new system has disadvantaged many thousands of people. Will my hon. Friend consider re-jigging it to allow for a more equitable share of council properties?

Sir George Young: I hope that my announcement that the Government felt that there should be more mobility within the local authority stock will encourage councils —including Hounslow—to review their transfer policies, and also to review the way in which priorities are allocated among competing demands from local authority tenants. I hope that all councils will try to find ways of promoting more transfers.
The relaxation of the rules governing local authority capital receipts over the coming year will provide authorities with an extra £1 billion for housing. I expect them to devote the money mainly to renovating rundown council estates, and to implementing the housing investment programme strategy set out in their recent bids. The figure is derived from evidence on local authority returns. Tenants awaiting improvements do not mind whether the work is paid for by borrowing or by a capital receipt; they want the work done, regardless of how it is funded—and more work will now be done.
"Capital receipts" is a phrase that has been much on the lips of Opposition Members. It is worth reminding them that there would be few capital receipts for us to debate if we had taken their advice on the right to buy. We did not think it right to allow authorities simply to spend the capital receipts that they had already built up. The current need is to stimulate the construction industry, and that justifies a temporary relaxation of the requirement to set aside part of the new receipts for that purpose. The relaxation gives authorities some £1·75 billion of extra spending power. Our proposals give them an incentive to promote new asset disposals, and to get in fresh receipts rather than recycling past ones.
I expect interest in the right to buy to increase as the economy recovers; I also expect interest in the rent-to-mortgage scheme to increase when the Bill reaches the statute book. Predictably, Opposition Members have already criticised the scheme: the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould), for instance, described it as facile and short term. I see nothing facile or short term in treating people as adults and giving them choice—a word used by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey. Authorities will gain a capital receipt, and they will be able to spend all of it, provided that it comes in before 31 March next year. I predict that Opposition Members will abandon their objection to the rent-to-mortgage scheme when they realise how popular it is, just as they abandoned their objection to the right to buy.
The motion makes the fair point that some local authorities have less prospect than others of generating receipts. We can handle that, up to a point, through the services of a lady called Rita—receipts taken into account. When we allocate credit approvals to local authorities—this, I think, is the process towards which the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey was cautiously nudging his way—we take into account the relative availability of receipts. That enables us to give higher basic credit approvals to the authorities with the fewest receipts —a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin).
Authorities with limited receipts will also be able to compete for the capital partnership scheme that was launched on Friday by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. The scheme provides up to £600 million of public money for projects that will stimulate growth.
The motion also mentions owner-occupiers. The package included help for those facing difficulty with their mortgages: a further and welcome reduction of one percentage point in interest rates. Over the past two years, interest rates have fallen by eight percentage points; that translates into a saving of more than £130 a month on a typical £33,000 mortgage since the level reached its peak in October 1990. For those who are concerned about the value of their properties, we are taking some 16,000 empty homes off the market in a short space of time. That will increase the number of transactions in the property market, and will reduce the overhang that has deterred many prospective buyers. The measure can only help to return confidence to the market—although none of us wants a return to the excesses of four years ago.
Measures taken a year ago have probably reduced the number of repossessions by about 50,000, but the best mortgage rescue scheme is provided by lower interest rates and a recovering economy, which was the purpose of the measures in the autumn statement. The number of court orders for repossessions has also fallen: in the third quarter of the year, the number of actions entered was 32 per cent. lower than it had been a year earlier.

Mr. Raynsford: Will the Minister give way?

Sir George Young: No. I promised that I would not give way again; indeed, I believe that I made that promise three times. The longer my speech lasts, the less will be the hon. Gentleman's chance of making his own formidable contribution.
One consequence of the fall in house prices has been the number of people with negative equity—perhaps 1 million,


according to one estimate by the Bank of England. That phenomenon does not call for the domesday scenario painted by some commentators. Most negative equity borrowers are not having trouble meeting their payments, nor do they want to move, but if they do want to move the property that they move to is likely to have fallen in value, along with their own home. My hon. Friend the Economic Secretary announced on 20 October two measures, which were widely welcomed, to help to promote mobility in those circumstances.
The building and construction industry is also mentioned in the motion. It was assisted last Thursday. Builders have the opportunity to improve their cash flow by selling unsold homes. There will be opportunities for smaller builders to carry out necessary repairs to repossessed homes that need attention. These measures have been welcomed by the construction industry. Neville Sims of Tarmac, for example, praised the Chancellor's proposals as imaginative and as a good way to get money into the construction industry in the regions. The new public-private funding rules announced on Thursday will give a further boost to investment in the inner city areas covered by city challenge.
There is even something in the package for estate agents. The £50 million to enable local authority and housing association tenants to buy homes in the market will increase transactions, as well as freeing up more homes for those on the waiting list.
Because of the rough sleeping initiative, there are now fewer people sleeping on the streets. There are fewer families in unsatisfactory bed-and-breakfast accommodation. The last figures for homeless acceptances showed a reduction, not an increase. The provision of good quality accommodation by housing associations has doubled in the past three years and the ambitious target that we set ourselves in our manifesto is now to be exceeded.
The programme for modernising and improving local authority estates can proceed at a faster pace, thanks to the change in the capital receipts rule. With interest rates for some first-time buyers at 6 per cent., home ownership is more affordable than it has been for more than 15 years; 20,000 homes, instead of lying empty, are to be put to the use for which they were built and that will help to restore confidence in the housing market.
I recognise that we have much work to do. Any London Member of Parliament knows that there are still shortages of social housing and that too many council tenants live in unacceptable conditions, but we are on the right track. It would be too optimistic to expect the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey to withdraw his motion, but I ask the House to support the Government amendment with enthusiasm.

Mr. John Battle: We, too, welcome the debate. There is nothing in the motion with which we disagree. It is particularly welcome at this time, coming so soon after the autumn statement. The autumn statement day ought to be remembered as the day when unemployment passed, in real terms, the 4 million mark. According to the original calculation of the figures, before the Government's 30 changes to massage them down, on 12 November this year unemployment passed 4 million. I

mention that at the beginning of my speech because rising unemployment is the primary cause of homelessness and the housing market crisis.
The scale of the housing crisis is daunting and worsens day by day. However, the Government try to put on a brave front and say that they are coping with it. Since the late 1970s, homelessness has more than doubled. In England alone, 147,000 households were accepted as homeless by local authorities in 1991. Many more were turned away as ineligible. More than 1·5 million are on local authority waiting lists. They comprise what could be described as the hidden homeless, often living in overcrowded and inappropriate circumstances. It is estimated that in 1991 an additional 80,000 single people were homeless but ineligible for help. In the past 18 months, more than 100,000 families have had their homes repossessed.
Not surprisingly perhaps, fewer than 100 families have had their homes saved by the Government's "intended" mortgage rescue scheme, which was announced this time last year. The Government promised us at the Dispatch Box that 40,000 households would be rescued. That never happened. More than 200,000 households are now more than six months in arrears with their mortgages; more than 1 million cannot afford to move because their homes are worth less than they paid for them.
Recently, the Bank of England estimated that further small falls in property values would add an additional 500,000 households to that total. In September this year, after the general election, the Department of the Environment disclosed that a record number of 62,780 homeless families were living in sometimes terrible quality temporary accommodation. As we now know, since 1979 the proportion of national expenditure, in real terms, spent on housing has more than halved. There has been a significant cut in expenditure. I say "significant" because the cut amounts to £5·3 billion—ironically, exactly the figure of accumulated capital receipts that local authorities have in the bank. To this day, the Government are preventing them from spending that money on housing.
What is the Government's response to the housing crisis? I submit that it is feeble. When we look at the small print of what we were offered in the autumn statement, we see that we have been short-changed. Barely six months ago, on 23 March, during those heady days of the electioneering period, the Secretary of State for the Environment asserted:
House sales under the Conservatives are picking up.'
All this, we were told, would change on 10 April if there were a Labour Government. We were also told that the recovery—I am tempted, Madam Deputy Speaker, to insert the word "sic"—in the housing market would be devastated, just as it was getting under way. The Secretary of State for the Environment was echoed by the Prime Minister on 31 March, when he said:
We're going to make life easier for people buying their home. Our policies will mean a stronger housing market.
[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Evans) may mutter, "Hear, hear", but what every other hon. Member and everybody else in the country knows is that exactly the opposite is true. People were truly conned on 9 April. Families now face the worst housing crisis in our society since the war. It is tempting to add that all the Government's special offers have been heard before and have been found to be second-hand and shoddy goods.
The latest evidence from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report, which was published last week, shows that further small falls in house prices threaten to double negative equity. It points out that four out of every 10 Londoners who bought their homes in the past five years now have properties worth less than their mortgages. Basildon now has a negative equity rate of 60 per cent. —an average shortfall of £6,500 for every household. That is where the rent-to-mortgage pilot scheme was undertaken. In those circumstances, I cannot imagine that it is going down well in Basildon.
What of the scale of the Government's response? The Government amendment is remarkable in its complacency. It says that the Government are keen to promote the growth of owner-occupation. Many commentators on housing and economic policy now submit that, at 69 per cent., owner-occupation in our society is unsustainable because there are not sufficient homes for people who need to rent. The Government do not seem yet to appreciate that fact. The amendment refers to widening choice for tenants. It does not refer to the fact that under the Housing and Urban Development Bill which is being considered in Standing Committee the Government are taking away tenants' rights in order to push through compulsory competitive tendering.
The amendment refers also to the targeting of public expenditure. It is tempting to add that that may be the only truthful statement in the amendment. It is true that resources are being targeted, because existing resources are being wrapped up and disguised as new money when in fact they prove to be old money.
The moves on interest rates are welcome. They will give hard-pressed home owners some relief, if the interest rate reduction is passed on, but that relief will apply only so long as people have a job and continue to be able to pay their mortgages. The question that many people are asking is whether this will be enough to revive the housing market. Many people think that they live simply one pay cheque away from redundancy and worry that their home may be the next to be repossessed.
The autumn statement was trumpeted in the press as offering extra money, but the Secretary of State was careful to use that weasel word and say that money had been "earmarked" rather than to suggest that new money was available. We discover from the fine print that that was a sleight of hand—a clever piece of news management to create the impression of new money. The Government are simply juggling the figures in a remarkable creative-accounting exercise.
What does the figure of £1·75 billion mean? It is tempting to ask the Minister, in the light of his statement, how firm that promise is. We are glad that the Government are at last coming around to our common-sense arguments on the need to use capital receipts, but it is not clear whether that promise of funds will be realised.
The autumn statement is based on illusion—the £1·75 billion in estimated capital receipts is not there. The Government have acknowledged that only £1·1 billion of that money will be available for housing, and only capital receipts that may be available in the next 12 months will be available as extra expenditure.
What will happen to the £5·5 billion of receipts that is sitting in local authorities' banks? Why cannot those funds be released?

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Tony Baldry): If the hon. Gentleman is to take that point, perhaps he will redefine his position. I quote from an interview with Inside Housing as recently as mid-September in which the journalist commented:
redefinition of the PSBR, which could theoretically release capital receipts for housing, is clearly not something Mr. Battle is prepared to argue for today.
The hon. Gentleman said:
Those are the arguments that the Treasury team are going to have to sort out. not me as the Housing spokesman. At the moment, redefinition is not on Labour's agenda. It is not one of my priorities.
Has the hon. Gentleman and his team managed to redefine the PSBR for the benefit of the country?

Mr. Battle: What I said still stands. We have pressed for the phased relief of capital receipts to enable them to be distributed according to need. The Government have not responded. They have simply told authorities that they may spend money which may or may not come in. Amazingly, in the face of current evidence, the Government assume that right-to-buy sales will pick up from their present low, but if they do not do so, the extra £1·75 billion will not materialise. Is not that the truth and should not Ministers be spelling that out? In practice, as the figures work through, people will find that they have been shortchanged again. The key question is whether the money will be available, and that depends on homes being sold to tenants on low incomes, under the right to buy, during a housing market slump and at a time of record repossessions. Most people in work feel that they cannot afford to take the chance of moving to purchase in case they lose their jobs.
A London Weekend Television programme on Friday night revealed that 70,000 people who bought their council flats cannot sell them because mortgage lenders are again doing what used to be described as red-lining. In his conversations with mortgage lenders this morning, what did the Minister say about that and what do the Government propose to do to unlock that situation? In turn, that will be a check on further house sales.
The small print of the autumn statement shows that Government capital allocations for local authority housing will be cut and that credit approvals will be substantially lower. We cannot now say what the figures are, because they will be revealed only in the forthcoming months, but that is the logic of the arithmetic in the autumn statement.
I suspect that the capital partnership is another example of iniative dazzle—an initiative for the media that lasts 24 hours, but in the afterglow realises little. In practice, it is top-slicing—taking money out of budgets and organising them from the centre again. It is a form of revamping of the estate action scheme. It is also clear that it will depend on bids and competition, with local authorities competing against each other according to how they use capital receipts in forthcoming years.

Sir George Young: Hear, hear.

Mr. Battle: The Minister says "Hear, hear", but that action reduces local authorities' ability to respond to local need and the total amount that is available for them.

Sir George Young: When I dealt with the capital partnership, I specifically explained that if, for good reasons, a local authority has no access to capital receipts, it will not be penalised in its hid for estate action.

Mr. Battle: It is encouraging to receive that reassurance, but we shall watch to see how it works in practice because we were told the same about the city challenge, and we saw how that worked in practice. Many authorities have been disappointed.
The promised new £600 million depends on sales that may never materialise. The whole project will buy only 16,000 homes, whereas more than 200,000 are empty, and that overhang is dominating the housing market. There is no new money, because £400 million will come from the Housing Corporation's allocation and £200 million from local authority credit approvals.
In practice, it could be argued that housing associations were worst hit in the autumn statement. Housing association grant rates are being cut from an average of 72 per cent. to 67 per cent. In an article in The Roof, Mr. David Edmonds, the former Housing Corporation's chief executive, pointedly showed how private finance would be more difficult to obtain because investors would be worried about whether housing benefit would continue to meet the tab for higher rents. The corporation's 150,000 homes promised over the next three years could be jeopardised because the Government have not got their act together and are forcing up rents. David Edmonds said:
There is very solid reason to argue that the point has been reached beyond which grant rates should not be diminished. How does an association explain to a banking credit appraisal expert that higher amounts of loan are needed, payments on which are serviced primarily by people on HB who pay rents which are increasingly viewed as unaffordable?

Mr. Jonathan Evans: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that there must always be a correlation between private finance and the grant rate made available by the Housing Corporation to take account of reductions in interest rates? There has been a substantial reduction in interest rates. Whenever an interest rate reduction is made—at least this is what happened when I was deputy chairman of Housing for Wales—;an alteration is made to the grant rate.

Mr. Battle: The hon. Gentleman is missing the point that the critical figure of 67 per cent. for attracting private finance is on the margin below which the private sector will not lend money to construct houses in the first place. The promised partnership between public and private money will collapse because the Government are reducing their contribution to housing associations.

Mr. Jenkin: I suggest that the matter is in the nature of public-private negotiations. The private sector will negotiate, of course, for the best terms that it can get and it is right that the Government should play their part and negotiate the best terms for the public sector to get better value for money. Those matters are resolved in the fullness of time. If one goes into negotiation on the basis that one will lose that negotiation, all I can say, on behalf of the homeless, is thank goodness the hon. Gentleman is not in charge.

Mr. Battle: The hon. Gentleman is missing the point that, for months, all the housing associations and the

private housing finance world have spelt out to the Government that 67 per cent. is the bottom line. Below that point, schemes will not go ahead.
I hope that the hon. Member for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin) will join me in pressing the Minister to make available the report on affordability which was prepared by the Housing Corporation and which now rests in his Department. I am pretty sure that it reveals that housing associations are being forced to push up rents, which makes schemes unsustainable. The net result is that housing associations can only take tenants who can guarantee that they are on full housing benefit. If they cannot, they will not get a place.
I urge the Minister to make the report available so that it can be discussed and the figures can be worked through in those terms. By changing grant relationships and by not taking account of housing benefit changes, the Government are pricing people out of even housing association housing, yet the Government insist that housing associations—and only housing associations—should provide affordable housing.
Special capital grant approvals are to be cut from 75 per cent. to 60 per cent. That means that for improvement grants to be paid at all to hard-up owner-occupiers, local authorities will have to meet 40 per cent. instead of 25 per cent. of the cost. We had hoped that there would be some reference in the autumn statement to the problems that local authorities face in terms of mandatory grants. The whole of their housing investment programmes could be consumed by the demand for improvement grants, yet the Government seem simply to be turning a blind eye. I urge the Minister to look again at mandatory grants and at their impact on local authorities' ability to serve housing needs in the round.
Let us look in slightly closer detail at the £750 million package to take 20,000 properties off the market through acquisitions by housing associations. We believe that that is inadequate when almost 250,000 properties either have been repossessed or were unsold in the first place. On BBC News on 12 November, John Wrigglesworth of UBS Phillips and Drew referred to the sum as
a snowflake on an iceberg".
Although the scheme is limited, the Government could sharpen it and substantially improve it.
Can the Minister assure us that the available money will go only to mortgage lenders who are running or who are about to set up mortgage rescue schemes? Why is the money not tied in so that there can be real and workable mortgage rescue schemes? That would make the money go further, as properties would not just be taken off the market. We would be reassured that repossessions would slow down, which would in turn prevent more repossessed houses coming on to the market. Why not link the scheme so that it does not simply reward lenders who repossess but goes some way towards keeping people in their own home?
Surely the same grant rates should apply to those schemes as they do to any other schemes funded by the Housing Corporation. Lower grant rates will simply lead to unaffordable rents and to dwindling housing association involvement in the scheme. In practice, the scheme is too inflexible. Some lenders may want to lease properties rather than to sell them outright. Why cannot the Government relax leasing restrictions on local authorities and on housing associations, and allow 20-year leases? There should be a combination of buy-back and leasing.
It is not clear whether the properties that are in disrepair or have been vandalised are to be included in the scheme. It is now evident that many properties that have been repossessed are in a terrible state. It is estimated that 100,000 repossessed properties standing for sale are in a poor condition and increasingly are being vandalised. Although lenders should bring properties up to standard, why do the Government not allow previously rundown properties to be included in the scheme as long as the lender agrees to do the necessary improvement work to bring them up to scratch, so that people can move into them?
Why cannot local authorities be given a guarantee of first refusal so that they can use the properties for homeless families? There would then be a direct link between cutting temporary accommodation bills and bringing the properties back into use.
What do we find for local authority tenants in the small print of the autumn statement? We find that council rents are to be forced up by 9 per cent. in the coming year—more than twice the rate of inflation. It will mean an average of £2·50 on everyone's rent. The Government then tell us that there is no problem of people being priced out of their homes. The measures in the autumn statement will have that effect and will force people into debt and insecurity. How can people exercise their rights if they find that they are increasingly in debt and unable to meet the primary demand to pay the rent? The Government fail to help not only those with mortgages, but those with rents.
There was no housing windfall in the autumn statement. Many homeless families, tragically, will still face a cold and bitter winter. There is no real evidence that the Government take the housing crisis seriously. Perhaps in the coming months they will listen to the lobby of the tenants and of the churches which is coming to the House. In the meantime, the autumn statement is part of the Government's clear strategy of simply putting off what they cannot bear to face today because it is politically embarrassing. We are not being presented with a new policy. It is simply a time-buying exercise to get the Government into the calmer waters of less hostile headlines.
As homelessness and unemployment inexorably rise, the Government's pitiful failure to recognise and to take seriously the scale of the housing crisis will become plainer for all to see. We intend to keep the spotlight on the Government's lack of housing policy. We continue to monitor initiatives that constantly prove ineffectual. We shall continue to press for emergency measures to tackle street homelessness not only in London but elsewhere. I remind the Minister that rough sleeping is no longer confined to London.
We shall press for real measures to revive the housing market and we shall continue to demand that people have the right to rent. We shall harass the Government in detail until our society is a lot closer to ensuring that everyone's right to a decent, appropriate and affordable home is realised. The Minister's great claims today for his Government's minuscule measures will not even stand the test of this Parliament.

Mr. Jonathan Evans: I am pleased to have the opportunity to follow the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle). I noticed that the words "welcome" and "glad" passed his lips. However, the tone was rather different. It was a speech by a rather lugubrious hon. Member. In terms of visual aspect, he was the nearest thing to Clement Freud.
I can understand why the hon. Gentleman was so gloomy. He appears to be an aficionado of "Black Dog" in the Mail on Sunday—his required Sunday reading, at least according to his speech in the Committee considering the Housing and Urban Development Bill. Last Tuesday, he gave us a warning about what was likely to happen the following Thursday when the Chancellor made his autumn statement. He quoted "Black Dog", saying:
'There is worrying news about Sir George Young the affable Housing Minister, whose budget has reportedly vanished in this autumn's draconian spending round."'— [Official Report, Standing Committee B; 10 November 1992; c. 3.]
The hon. Gentleman then quoted more from that article. I can understand why the hon. Gentleman was so gloomy. He has found that the budget of my hon. Friend the Minister has not evaporated. Instead, it has been considerably expanded and I welcome that. I particularly welcome the extra funding that has been made available in Wales. Some £38 million of extra funding will be used by local authorities and Housing for Wales and to assist the work of housing associations.
I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales has already said that he will discuss that allocation with the chairman of Housing for Wales and that wide-ranging discussions will take place about how that money can be spent because we must ensure that the money is spent wisely. In that regard, I want to raise some concerns with my hon. Friend the Minister.
It is important that the money should not be used as a catalyst for mortgage lenders to take further action in cases where they are staying their hands in respect of repossessions. The hon. Member for Leeds, West referred to the deterioration of properties which have come on to the market. If the money was to be spent solely on purchase and rehabilitation of those properties, it is important that we consider the taxation rules.
When I was involved with Housing for Wales, I was concerned about the fact that there was a shift towards new build away from the rehabilitation of property. That shift occurred because 17·5 per cent. VAT is added to the cost of the rehabilitation of property. It would be deeply damaging if much of the new funding was leaked away in that fashion. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to consider that point in the discussions with the Housing Corporation and the local authorities when they assess how the funding can be used.
I am also anxious that the rural housing problem should be recognised in Wales and elsewhere. So often when we discuss homelessness the problem is referred to in the context of cardboard city and images of people in desperate circumstances sleeping in the shop doorways of many of our major cities. Many of the problems are being addressed by initiatives referred to by my hon. Friend the Minister. However, as a result of those stark images, we sometimes lose contact with the fact that there is also a


rural housing crisis. The problem of people who earn the lowest wages and live in rural areas is pushed into the background.
I am pleased to say that in Wales at least that problem has been recognised. Twenty-eight per cent. of the funding to housing associations in Wales is given to associations that work in rural areas and perhaps that lesson could be followed in England. Some of the Welsh initiatives will avoid situations that have occurred in towns because it has been recognised that the funding should be invested on the basis of local needs.
Although councils may have ideas about local housing needs, sometimes the people who live in the villages have the best means of identifying the local housing needs. That is why several initiatives have been started in Wales which draw together local needs surveys. They have identified problems in relation to housing which the local housing authorities may not have recognised in some parts of the Principality.
Once the problems have been identified, there is investment, but not in those vast council estates—the monoliths of municipal socialism of the past as I like to describe them. Instead, perhaps between two and eight houses are built in a village and they become part of the village. They do not become ghettoes. Those houses are not just part of the community; they are attractive to local people and young people can stay, live and work in the communities in which they have been raised.
Initiatives have also been taken on a national level, and also in Wales, to bring into use the empty accommodation above shops. That is a worthwhile initiative for which funding has been made available and it is quite apart from general support made available for the vital renting and shared ownership programme.
My hon. Friend the Minister outlined the steps being taken to attempt to deal with rough sleeping in our cities. I particularly welcome my hon. Friend's attempt to reduce the figures in terms of the use of bed-and-breakfast accommodation for so many families. Before I came to the House, and subsequently in articles that I have written on the issue, I have stated that it is unacceptable for a Government who have been in office for 13 years still to have so many people, even on today's figures, living in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. That is not something with which I want to be associated and I know that my hon. Friend the Minister does not wish to be associated with it either.
More than that, the provision of bed-and-breakfast accommodation does not make economic sense. All the surveys show that it can cost between twice and three times as much to accommodate people in those absolutely unacceptable conditions than if we were to house them properly in the first place. I welcome the steps that have been taken to reduce the proportion, as my hon. Friend the Minister said, from 24 per cent. to 18 per cent. During the many years that I will be a Member of this place, I hope that we will ensure that the figure is reduced substantially—and the earlier the better.
I hope that the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) will not take offence when I say that he adopted a sanctimonious approach. At one point, he seemed to say that the Government should simply be building more houses. That may be a disservice to him, but I do not believe that simply more housebuilding is what is needed. On the contrary, it seems that we have sufficient properties.
It is well known that there are about 750,000 empty properties in private and public hands. We can all argue about the accuracy of the figures and we often hear all sorts of figures bandied around the House. However, we might agree that about 150,000 families are currently accepted as being homeless by local authorities. In such circumstances, we should urgently seek a marriage between the two sets of figures.
According to the figures that I have seen, 9·7 per cent. of public housing in Liverpool appears to be empty. It is unacceptable that there are local authorities—including authorities which at least two hon. Members in the Chamber now represent—in which the amount of council house rents outstanding is colossal. The highest amount outstanding is in the constituency of the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey. According to my figures, there are some £35 million of uncollected council house rents in the hon. Gentleman's authority.
I know that it is said that the cause of such outstanding rents is that people are in desperate financial circumstances and they cannot afford to pay the rents. I notice that the hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth) is in the Chamber. He will be aware that his local authority, within which many people face strained financial circumstances, has performed much better in terms of collecting council house rents than Southwark and Bermondsey or Greenwich.

Mr. Raynsford: Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that there is a serious problem in respect of people being able to afford rent or mortgages in the rented and privately-owned sectors? Does he accept that mortgage arrears have increased dramatically, as have rent arrears? When the Government propose to increase rents in council properties by on average 9 per cent., when they expect public sector workers to accept a maximum 1·5 per cent. pay increase, does the hon. Gentleman accept that that is a recipe for further increases in arrears?

Mr. Evans: I made a misjudgment. I thought that the hon. Gentleman was about to explain why Greenwich had an outstanding figure of 25 per cent. in council house rents—about £13 million. I was hoping that the hon. Gentleman would be able to tell us how many houses in his constituency might be built for that sum.

Mr. Charles Hendry: Has my hon. Friend noted the correlation between councils that are dilatory at collecting rents and those that have bad records in respect of occupied housing and the number of vacancies in boroughs such as Southwark? Southwark is the fourth worst borough in London in terms of vacancies. One of the few councils with a worse record for vacancies is the Liberal Democrat-controlled borough of Tower Hamlets.

Mr. Evans: I also have made that correlation. I represent the largest constituency in Wales—I think that it is also the largest constituency in England and Wales—and we have managed, through all local authorities in Wales, many of which are controlled by friends of the Labour party, to keep down the number of public housing voids. The figures that I was able to gain from the Welsh Office in a parliamentary answer only last week show that there is a direct balance between housing association voids and council house voids of 1·2 per cent. in Wales. When we compare that with the situation in which there have been


up to 10 per cent. voids in some local authority areas in England, we see that far more needs to be done than just throwing money at the problem.

Mr. Simon Hughes: I agree. The hon. Gentleman will imagine that, for obvious reasons, I am critical of my local authority, but one thing that he may not know, which is relevant and has been raised with Ministers, is that there is an unfair method of calculating the amount needed per unit of property, which is called the management and maintenance allowance, across different authorities. For no current, valid reason there is a differential allowance—government to local authority money—which means that boroughs such as Southwark get far less than otherwise identical boroughs with the same housing needs.

Mr. Evans: I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. I am sure that he would not wish to excuse his local authority's performance in terms of that staggering figure of outstanding council house rents, particularly when he so graphically illustrates the housing problem in London.

Ms. Glenda Jackson: The hon. Gentleman has spent some time being highly critical of local authorities. I should like to give him an example of what is happening in the private rented sector in London. In one case, a young woman found a room for herself in a house where the rent was £45 a week. She would have had to claim housing benefit to pay it. Her landlord suggested that, as she was claiming housing benefit, they should bump up the rent to £60 and split the difference. She refused to do that and is therefore homeless.
Another case involves a young couple, one of whom was a student. Her boyfriend became ill. When their landlord discovered that they would be reliant on housing benefit, they were asked to leave. That is yet another example within the private sector. Local authorities are saints in comparison.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Before the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Evans) continues, let me say that interventions are becoming progressively longer. That is not confined to one side; I make the observation to all.

Mr. Evans: I am obliged for your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am trying to be as generous as possible to Opposition Members.
I certainly do not defend the activities of landlords who behave in the way that the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Ms. Jackson) has outlined. She appears to have in her hand a document which presents some detail of that case, but it seems to me as a lawyer that the first case that she outlined is one in which the involvement of the police should be considered at an early point. It clearly was an invitation to participate in a criminal offence.

Ms. Jackson: rose—

Mr. Evans: I shall give way just for clarification and then I shall make progress.

Ms. Jackson: A lawyer would realise that any case requires evidence.

Mr. Evans: I am sure that the hon. Lady has not been putting points to me without evidence. I rather hoped that she put her case with evidence to support her assertion. I shall now make progress.
It has become clear that it is the Government's responsibility to ensure that we improve the supply and condition of our rented housing stock. Quite apart from the other choices and availability that there may be of different tenures, that has to be a cardinal point. The Government, sometimes in the face of substantial opposition, have given positive support to housing associations, and they deserve congratulations for that. In the course of that work they have had to attempt to deal with a manifest distortion in the rented housing sector. I refer in particular to the way in which the private rented sector, sometimes because of the abuse that is piled on many landlords who have attempted to operate within the private sector, has declined substantially. That has been regarded with some sadness by hon. Members.
It must be recognised that if there are three quarters of a million empty properties, although many are in the public sector, a large proportion of them are in the private sector. One would wish those properties to be brought into better use. One factor that must be borne in mind when we consider the Opposition's figures is that the Government have given substantial support through the housing benefits system.
I note the point that was made by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey, but, according to figures that I obtained from the Library this morning, in the past year £5·9 billion in support was given. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Raynsford) is not terribly happy about that because, in seminars and conferences around the country, he has been saying that that is manifestly dreadful and stupid. Taken together with the other amounts of support in terms of the Government's house building programme, there is substantial assistance—up to 18 per cent. of the public sector borrowing requirement, according to the figures that I saw today.
The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey referred to such evidence and said that mortgage tax relief is a bad thing. The hon. Member for Greenwich shares that view. The proportion of support available under mortgage tax relief has substantially eroded over the years, and that must be recognised. The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey is shaking his head, but that is absolutely true. Inflation and tax decreases have substantially eroded that benefit, as a result of which it is fairly likely in the current year that the amount of support available through housing benefit will overtake the support that is given under mortgage tax relief. At the moment, 69 per cent. of households in Wales are receiving support through the housing benefit structure initially directly from the Government and then from local authorities.
Hon. Members recognise that there is a housing crisis in this country—I hope that I made that clear at the beginning of my speech. If there were no crisis there would not be a need for all the steps that the Government have taken to address the problem. My hon. Friend the Minister is regarded throughout the country as a person who genuinely recognises the scale of the problem. Many of the initiatives over the past few years are directly as a result of the pressure and influence that he has been able


to bring to bear. I am absolutely sure that, with my hon. Friend in charge of our housing programme, we have a policy that all our colleagues can support.

Ms. Glenda Jackson: Although I welcome the opportunity to participate in this debate, I do not welcome the fact that for the fourth time in this Parliament we are debating the issue of homelessness. I look forward to the day when homelessness will have no place in this Chamber or in the cities and towns of this country.
My hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Raynsford) has referred to homelessness as a scar on the face of society. While agreeing wholeheartedly with his sentiment, I disagree with his analogy, because over time scars heal, but during this Government's tenure of office the number of households accepted as homeless has tripled, to stand at 150,000. That represents 400,000 adults and children. According to the Shelter briefing, which I am sure all hon. Members received in time for the autumn statement, almost 63,000 of those families will spend this Christmas in unsuitable temporary housing, such as bed and breakfast hotels and local authority hostels.
There are enough learned documents around to prove the dangers for children in bed and breakfasts—quite apart from the economic costs. In London, the cost of keeping a family in bed and breakfasts is estimated at £14,500 a year. The damage done to children is almost inestimable. Children in bed and breakfasts tend to catch illnesses far more easily and to have greater difficulty in learning and in creating real social relationships. The borough in which my constituency lies has 1,900 families with no homes of their own; that figure does not include the number forced to use voluntary hostels or squats or cardboard boxes for shelter.
There is no doubt that the plight of the homeless is a matter of concern to hon. Members on both sides of the House, but a former leader of the Conservative party once said that it is not enough for people merely to say that they care; their actions must support their words. The Government's actions so far have failed to alleviate, let alone eradicate, the evil of homelessness.
Last week, the Chancellor of the Exchequer unveiled a number of proposals in his autumn statement designed to boost the housing sector—proposals to which the Minister referred today. One proposal was to purchase 20,000 empty homes. Another was that councils would be allowed to spend the capital receipts that they earn between now and December 1993. That was done, the Chancellor said, to make a real contribution to housing families in need.
What was the background against which the announcement was made? Twenty thousand homes are to be purchased, but last year 75,000 homes were repossessed. Capital receipts will be released from now until December 1993, but more than £8 billion in capital receipts have already been accumulated. So the Government can buy 20,000 homes, yet they allow the seizure of 75,000.
This is a time of deep recession, when people are much concerned that they may have no jobs, when—to quote Shelter—the rate of mortgage repossessions in England alone is running at 200 a day and when loans more than 12 months in arrears had risen by June 1992 by almost 25 per cent. to more than 110,000. So the Government, on the

most optimistic estimate, are giving £1·75 billion in capital receipts but are blocking the £8 billion that councils have already raised from the right to buy.
On top of all this, the Government tell councils, which have the prime responsibility for housing those in need, that they will give them less money next year to discharge their duties than they did this year—that has always been the trend while the Conservative party has been in power. Spending on housing in real terms fell from £11·6 billion in 1978–79 to £5·5 billion in 1991–92—a reduction of £6·1 billion.
The Government claim that they care about the homeless, but in the next breath they say that it is not for central Government to generate the growth in the housing sector which the homeless so desperately need and in their third breath they announce that they will bring in spending measures that will prevent local government from generating growth.
Homelessness under this Government has become an epidemic, and it is eating away at the fabric of society. How much potential is wasted in the doorways of the shops lining the Strand? How many doctors, teachers and business men could have grown—could still grow—out of the people who have no home of their own and hence no opportunity? What can be said of a Government who deny them that opportunity?
The Conservative manifesto states:
The opportunity to own a home and pass it on is one of the most important rights an individual has in a free society.
But what of those denied the right to live in a home, never mind own one? A right to clean, decent, affordable housing should be guaranteed, and if all else fails it is incumbent on the Government to safeguard that right. If solving the problem of homelessness means Government intervention before lunch, breakfast and dinner, so be it. Homelessness will not be solved by the reintroduction of restrictions on capital receipts, due to come into effect in December 1993. Nor will it be solved by the restrictions on council spending due to come into effect in April 1993. Nor will it be solved by unemployment, by recession or by the slump to which no end is in sight—

Mr. Nigel Evans: Will the hon. Lady give way?

Ms. Jackson: I shall shortly have finished my speech.
The glossy brochure in my hand is not, it may surprise my hon. Friends to hear, a charter produced by the Government. It is called, "The London Day Centres Directory: Services for Homeless People". As Conservative Members can see, it has many pages and many more sub-divisions. Instead of tackling the basic problem of homelessness and our inadequate housing stock, we are being directed to manage homelessness—to find it acceptable and to tolerate it. Many people have asked me why homelessness and the problem of housing are not higher up the political agenda—

Mr. Evans: Will the hon. Lady give way?

Ms. Jackson: I say that these issues are high up the political agenda—we will all see how high as Christmas approaches. For a few weeks before Christmas, local and national newspapers will publish schemes under which the homeless will be taken off the streets and put in damp, drafty vaults under bridges. There they will be fed turkey


dinners on paper plates and there they will toast each other in champagne from polystyrene cups. Come Boxing day they will become invisible again.
I urge the Government to set in train before Christmas real measures that will make this glossy brochure utterly irrelevant by this time next year.

Mr. Evans: Will the hon. Lady give way?

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am not clear whether the hon. Lady is giving way.

Ms. Jackson: I have concluded my speech.

Mr. Gary Streeter: This will be the fifth time I have spoken since becoming a Member inApril. By some strange coincidence, you, Madam Deputy Speaker, have been in the Chair on each occasion. I do not presume to detect any connection beyond the fact that we represent neighbouring seats.
I was interested to hear the excellent remarks by my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Evans), who said that he foresaw many happy years in the House for himself. Given that he has a majority of 130, one can only conclude that that was an example of great confidence—admirable confidence.
I congratulate the Government on the excellent measures in the autumn statement to help boost the housing market and meet housing need. We all want everyone to have a decent home at an affordable price, and it is encouraging that the Government have introduced more measures to meet that end.
I refer first to the £750 million to be provided for housing associations to buy up an estimated 20,000 repossessed properties in the next 12 months, to convert them to homes for rent. That will be an important measure to free the housing market, which has been bogged down during the past two years. The Government have taken an incisive and imaginative measure to get the market moving again at the lower end, by removing 20,000 empty and repossessed properties from the market. I support that excellent measure, as it will help to stimulate the housing market.
I welcome the reduction of the interest rate to 7 per cent.—as low as I can remember during my working life —which is an excellent boost for the property market. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister is listening—

Mr. Baldry: Yes, I am.

Mr. Streeter: I am sure that my hon. Friend is—I did not wish to infer otherwise. I thought that he might have nodded off and that perhaps the headphones were his personal stereo. I hope that he will speak severely to building societies that fail to pass on the benefits of lower interest rates for several months. Recently, the Halifax announced that it would pass on the benefit in January. I must declare an interest, as it is lending me a small amount of money. Why cannot the Halifax pass on the benefit of that rate reduction in December?
Building societies and banks have a lot to answer for in failing to pass on interest rate reductions early enough, and we shall hear more about banks in the Adjournment

debate tonight. I hope that the Government will get tough with those building societies and banks that fail quickly to pass on the reductions.
Excellent deals are available in the market place for first-time buyers and people who want to move house, who will be able to borrow money at advantageous rates. I scanned the Sunday newspapers and found that one could get a loan on a fixed rate of interest for seven years—long enough to tide us over the next upturn in the property cycle which is bound to come—at 8·25 per cent. Anyone who wants to plan ahead with certainty can take the sort of packages on offer at 8·25 per cent. There has never been a better time to buy a property, and I hope that that message is getting across to home owners and first-time buyers.
Even estate agents have begun to report an upturn in activity during the past few days, which is greatly to be welcomed. We hear much about the difficulties that home owners have suffered during the past two years—about negative equity and repossessions. Those are real problems, but it is not right for us to concentrate on a short-term problem and to allow it to negate a long-term benefit.
There is no doubt that home ownership remains the aspiration of the vast majority of families, and so it should be. In the long term, home ownership is a great asset to any person or family. It is undoubtedly the single biggest asset that most people have, and is to be encouraged. I welcome Government measures to encourage it and the forthcoming rent-into-mortgage scheme which will extend the choice of home ownership to another layer of the population.
I also welcome the capital receipts initiative, announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in his excellent statement on Thursday. I am not the only one to welcome it. On Friday 13 November, a report was published in the Plymouth Western Evening Herald—an excellent local newspaper—which stated:
Plymouth could be in for a £2 million windfall from council house sales, courtesy of Chancellor Norman Lamont it emerged today. City Housing Chairman Pat Kelly gave a cautious welcome to Mr. Lamont's announcement yesterday that councils can now spend all the money they make from selling land and houses. Mr. Kelly said, 'I have done some sums which indicate we could generate between £1·5 million and £2 million from the sale of about 100 council houses that we have in the pipeline'.
That is a cautious welcome from a left-wing Labour-controlled authority, which is no friend of our party or of the homeless. By May 1991, when I ceased —by the will of the people—to be the housing chairman in Plymouth, I had already set up many deals between the council and housing associations, which the local authority instantly froze for ideological reasons. It preferred to keep people waiting on the streets and in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, rather than to deal with evil housing associations, which it saw as the wicked private sector. That was an absolute disgrace. That same council has welcomed the statement by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor on capital receipts, estimating that it will release up to £2 million during the next 14 months, which will enable the council to build up to 100 council houses. That is a measure of the support that my right hon. Friend's excellent initiative has in this country. A cautious welcome from the left-wing Plymouth city council is the highest accolade.
I welcome the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) to the Opposition Front Bench, although he is no


longer in the Chamber, and I listened to his speech with interest. I am pleased that he intends to press for measures to improve housing, and I offer to accompany him on his trips around Labour-controlled local authorities—I am sure that that was what he had in mind—to urge them to get their act together, to collect rents, carry out repairs, utilise voids and deal with housing associations rather than turning their backs on them.

Mr. George Howarth: Does the hon. Gentleman care to name one Labour authority that turns its back on housing associations?

Mr. Streeter: I have already named Plymouth city council, which turned its back on housing associations for 18 months, hoping to keep all the land in its ownership so that it could build council houses, knowing that it would never have the money to do so.

Mr. Howarth: rose—

Mr. Streeter: No, I must move on. I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman.
I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Leeds, West at long last understands the need to press for measures to improve the housing stock—doubtless by putting pressure on Labour-controlled authorities.
In addition to the Chancellor's excellent statement about capital receipts on Thursday, I welcome the fact that he has been able to maintain the Housing Corporation's budget for the next three years and even to add to it. That is greatly to be welcomed. Housing associations in Plymouth are planning to build more than 250 houses in the next 12 months and the 100 houses that the city council may be able to add to that will be an excellent step towards meeting the needs of the homeless. I welcome the fact that the budget has been not cut but augmented. No doubt that owes much to the Government's commitment to the homeless.
The Government should encourage councils to consider not merely selling houses or land to release capital receipts to spend on housing. Plymouth Pavilions is a leisure and conference complex, which was built by the local authority at a cost of £25 million and which is running at a loss of £1·5 million per annum. Local authorities should not run such centres. If that complex were sold to the private sector, it would make a profit, and release money which could be spent on noteworthy assets and meritworthy schemes in Plymouth. I suggest that local authorities should consider such sales. The Government can only create a framework and it is for local authorities to deal with their housing stock, and to suggest initiatives to take full advantage of the excellent leadership given by the Government.
The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) spoke about releasing the £5·5 billion currently held by local authorities; he referred to those funds as "historic capital receipts". But the motion does not say how local authorities would deal with the shortfall in their general funds which spending that money would create. The interest currently accruing on those capital receipts comes from the general fund of local authorities throughout the country. If that money were spent, the interest would not enter the general fund and the shortfall would have to be covered by community charge payers. The hon. Gentleman did not mention that. If he is committed to that course of action, I invite him to make

it perfectly clear in the leaflets that will no doubt flood the land in the run-up to the county council elections next May that it is Liberal Democrat policy to spend those capital receipts and to double community charges throughout the country, massively increasing the council tax. That will allow voters at the county council elections to decide whether they wish to follow such a policy.

Mr. Simon Hughes: The answer to the hon. Gentleman's accusation is that we have a simple view, which I hope that he, as a former local government councillor, supports. Each local council should have the freedom to spend all its capital receipts or not. That decision should not be imposed by central Government.

Mr. Streeter: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's intervention. I take it as a confirmation that the Liberal Democrats will be courageous enough to spell out in its election material the implications not only of 1 p in the pound for education but of doubling the community charge to pay for capital receipts.

Mr. David Lidington: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Liberal Democrats also want to abolish capping, which would increase last year's community charge or next year's council tax, placing a further burden on home owners?

Mr. Streeter: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is of great concern that those Liberal Democrat policies slip through the net because no one takes the party seriously enough to read its manifestos and see what its policies are. Most people would be alarmed at the prospect of those dreadful policies.
The Government are committed to ensuring that local authorities give value for money in their management of public sector housing. That is vital if we are to resolve housing issues. We should remember that 4·2 million household units owned by local authorities are still let in the public sector. The best way to improve the condition of housing stock and the plight of the homeless is to persuade local authorities to become increasingly efficient. I welcome the measures which the Government have pursued for many years to drive local authority housing departments towards greater efficiency.
The compulsory competitive tendering measures shortly to be introduced are welcome, but they do not go far enough. One of the biggest problems of housing departments in managing housing stock is the fact that they are bogged down by local authority culture. Legal, treasury and general administrative services supplied to housing departments throughout the country are a major impediment to efficiency.
Will my hon. Friend the Minister consider the point that I made in my maiden speech—it now seems a long time ago—about independently managed local authority companies buying in services from wherever they wish, at the best price that they can find, whenever they want them? They would buy in repair, legal, financial and every other service, rather than being suffocated as they are now by local authority culture, which most housing departments must suffer. CCT is an excellent measure that will introduce efficiency into housing departments. But it will not help housing management to escape the icy grip of local authority culture, and I hope that the Government will look again at that point.
It has been said that the Government's proposals will result in a 9 per cent. increase in council rents. The average council rent in Plymouth is just less than £25 a week. From the way in which Opposition Members react when the matter is discussed in the House, one would think that we were talking about £125 a week. I believe that £25 still provides excellent value for money and that 9 per cent. on £25 is not a draconian increase. Moreover, housing benefit exists to support those who cannot afford to pay it.

Mr. Raynsford: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Streeter: I am just winding down, so I shall not give way.
It is wrong to suggest that the Government are introducing measures that will penalise council tenants. However, I urge them to look again at the most effective way of encouraging local authorities to run housing associations.
I reject the motion put forward by the Liberal Democrats and support the Government's valiant attempts to make affordable housing appropriate and within the reach of everyone in the nation.

Mr. George Howarth: I wish to take up a point made by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Streeter). He should not try—in the House or elsewhere—to characterise Labour-controlled local authorities or any other local authorities as being generally obstructive towards housing associations. I am familiar with how Labour-controlled local authorities and housing associations operate, and it simply is not true to say that Labour-controlled authorities have a general policy of obstructing housing associations. I am not familiar with his example of Plymouth council, but as a general principle it is not the case. I expect that the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Evans), who has some experience in these matters, will confirm that that is the case in Wales.

Mr. Jonathan Evans: The hon. Gentleman will concede, however, that even I know of instances where some authorities take such a hostile line.

Mr. Howarth: The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton was trying to establish the fact that Labour-controlled authorities have such a general policy, and that simply is not true. That is the only rebuttal that I care to make of his speech.
May I say a few words about the consequences of the autumn statement for housing policy? We need, first, to consider the Government's diagnosis of the problems in the housing market and, secondly, to look specifically at how their proposed remedies follow the diagnosis. The generally accepted diagnosis, which even Ministers may accept, is that there is a double problem of overhang in the housing market. On the one hand, a debt overhang is causing considerable hardship to families but is also acting as a brake on the housing market. On the other hand, there is an overhang caused by the number of properties on the market that cannot be sold because of general market conditions. Those two problems feed off each other: the glut of properties on the market causes problems for people who wish to sell and their debt therefore mounts

up. Part of that equation is the effect of falling prices—the negative equity that has already been mentioned. That is the broad diagnosis of the problem.
I shall not go into the problems of homelessness, which have been more than adequately dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Ms. Jackson) and others. I wish to concentrate on the narrow area that is of immense importance to the development and execution of housing policy in the next year or so.
Two remedies are proposed. First, £750 million is allegedly being made available to the Housing Corporation to enable housing associations to acquire, it is said, 20,000 additional properties. Secondly, the Government will grant permission to use capital receipts between now and the end of next year. According to the Housing Corporation press release issued on Thursday, £600 million is being made directly available to that programme and another £150 million will be directed from capital receipts.
In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) and to the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes), the Minister said that additional money would be available over the period covered by the press release. I have not had the opportunity to make a precise calculation, but the amount available during the 12 months of the scheme will be more than £200 million. However, it will be available in principle only.
On Friday, I spent a good deal of time telephoning a wide range of contacts in the housing association movement. Some of them are directly employed by associations, some are consultants, and some have general expertise in housing finance. I do not claim that it was a scientific survey, but it led me to the view that for two reasons the scheme will not work. First, considerable delays will necessarily be imposed on housing associations because of the negotiations and surveys that must take place before any property is acquired. Unless the associations can buy huge portfolios of properties by way of auction or some such scheme, much time and resources will need to be spent carrying out the necessary searches and surveys and in conducting negotiations. I spoke to a surveyor who carried out some preliminary work of that nature. He told me that the repair bill to make a property fit for habitation and available for rent is likely to be between £5,000 and £10,000.
A substantial amount of public money is used to fund the housing association grants system and those associations have to go through all the proper procedures to acquire property. That will take time. Secondly, they have to identify the extent of the necessary repairs, and if they are very expensive the transaction may have to be abandoned. Given a tolerance level of plus or minus 20 per cent., I predict that the 20,000 target will not be achieved. I could go further and say that it is unlikely that the Government will achieve 2,000 units within the time available. That will result in a huge difference between the actual cost and the money that the Government have identified for the programme. Much but not all of that money has already been taken from the Housing Corporation's agreed development programmes for the next two years. If I am right and there is a substantial underspend in the programme, will the money be put back into the corporation's agreed development programme over the next two years? I shall give way to the Minister if he wishes to give that assurance.

Mr. Baldry: I have every confidence that the Housing Corporation and the housing associations will be able to meet the target that we have set for them.

Mr. Howarth: In that case, I conclude that if the scheme fails to meet the target of 20,000 properties, the corporation's agreed programme for the next two years will have had money taken away from it and not spent. The overall impact on the construction industry will therefore be negative rather than positive.

Mr. Jonathan Evans: Even if the hon. Gentleman's worst fears were realised in a short time, he will know from his knowledge of housing associations that they are currently working on cash-limited allocations for years ahead. If it is a matter of spending money, it should not be difficult to advance programmes that have already been planned or to make off-the-shelf purchases.

Mr. Howarth: That may well be the case, but it was not my point. In his intervention the Minister did not make it clear that the resources will be returned to the Housing Corporation's programme over the next two years. The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Evans) may dissent from the specifics of my prediction hut, given his knowledge of the Housing Corporation; he would probably accept its generality. If my prediction is correct, the impact on construction will be negative.
The second part of the programme announced in the autumn statement was that local authorities will be allowed to spend capital receipts that they accrue during the 12 or 13-month time slot. The matter is notoriously unpredictable. In his speech, the Minister used submissions by local authorities for credit approval bids to assess the amount of money that would be available. I think that I am right in assuming that. I do not know how one assesses the accuracy of those bids because they are always best guesses. However, I know from experience in my constituency and elsewhere that the market is in such an appalling state that many potential buyers of land and council properties—of which about 40 per cent. have probably been sold—are wary about entering it. I suspect that even local authorities did not anticipate the depths to which the market would sink. The Government's assessment will turn out to be extremely optimistic.

Mr. Peter L. Pike: Many people are not willing to exercise their right to buy council properties or properties in the private sector because they fear redundancy and unemployment, a cloud that is hanging over hundreds of thousands or millions of people.

Mr. Howarth: My hon. Friend makes a most important point in justifying my argument. Confidence in the market by builders, developers and potential purchasers simply does not exist. I would be delighted if the autumn statement and subsequent pronouncements from the Department of the Environment and the Housing Corporation boosted confidence. However, the proposed programmes do not contain sufficient substance to inject such confidence into the market.
Another point arises out of the autumn statement. In this, I support what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West from the Front Bench. By reducing the housing associations' grant percentage to 67 per cent., the Government are hoping—this is an arguable point—to raise additional private finance and thereby to

expand the amount of programme money that will be available. In other words, they hope to make the available public money go further.
My fear is that, rather than achieving that, it will have one of two effects. First, it could make it more and more difficult, in each given scheme that a housing association considers, to arrive at a combination of private finance and grant that will result in affordable rents. I know that, even at higher levels of grant, housing associations are having difficulty making that equation work.
If submissions from housing associations, through the National Federation of Housing Associations and others, prove to the Minister that this will create problems, I hope that he will listen to those representations and find a compromise solution to enable the programme that we all want to see in place go ahead. I hope that he does not get tied down to the figure as the last word when it may turn out to cause a problem.
The other possible consequence that I fear is that housing associations will be obliged, if they try to stick rigidly to that percentage, to drive down standards so as to make the equation work. We know from the example of local authority housing in the 1960s and 1970s the consequence of allowing standards to slip. It creates expensive long-term problems that are the source of great misery to many people.
I had hoped to say more, but I shall cut my remarks short as several hon. Members still wish to speak. I hope that the expectations that the Government have created through the Chancellor's announcement can be met, but I strongly fear that they cannot. After all the hype and the fuss over the past week have died down, if it proves, as I fear that it will, that the problems built into that announcement overwhelm the projects that have been set in train, I hope that, as quickly as possible, the Government will think again. I hope that the Minister will listen to the submissions that are bound to come from housing associations and others and will be willing to modify the details so that the Government's objectives —rather than the hype—can be met.

Mr. Iain Duncan-Smith: For a variety of reasons, I have no hesitation in supporting the Government amendment. Some of the major points missed by Opposition Members include the important one that, since the Conservative party came into power in 1979, we have changed the nature of the housing market and the link with councils. The base line has changed so radically that many Opposition Members have been left behind. The changes are not only in the position of councils but in the expectations of individuals. The simple fact that well in excess of 60 per cent. of the population own their own homes is a significant factor. It means that people are determined to take decisions about their own lives into their own hands and to get away from the problems resulting from the bad running of estates by local authorities.
The Government have recently made some significant commitments. I congratulate them on their stated hope to exceed the commitment to build 53,000 houses. Over the period that we have been in power, of the 6 million householders who have bought their own homes, about 1·4 million have done so under the right-to-buy scheme, of which all of us are justifiably proud.
I shall not speak for too long as many others wish to speak, but I wish to dwell on the subject of the housing action trust scheme, introduced by the Government. For a while, it was faltering as councils opposed it. In my area, the tenants in Waltham Forest gave it their full support. The Conservative party should thank them, because more than 70 per cent. of them voted in favour of taking their housing estates out of the control of local authorities and instead to put them in the hands of a housing action trust. It is important to bear that in mind because that is the key to the issue. We have here people whose lives have been blighted by some of the worst-run estates in central London and who chose, in significant numbers, to get away from that.

Mr. Raynsford: Will the hon. Gentleman recognise—the Minister will, as he was aware of this—that the tenants in Waltham Forest voted for the housing action trust only when they had been given a clear and categoric guarantee that they could return to local authority control after the properties had been renovated?

Mr. Duncan-Smith: When I go around the estates, I am told that the tenants have no wish to see the properties return to local authority control. The record of the local authority in running the estates, particularly Chingford Hall estate, which is in my constituency, was appalling. One has only to walk around the estate to see that it has been left in rack and ruin and that it is falling to pieces, to such an extent that the housing action trust will take down most of the estate and rebuild houses that will be perfect for people who wish to live there in comfort.

Mr. Raynsford: The tenants still wish the properties to return to the local council.

Mr. Duncan-Smith: They do not wish that.
When I have visited the housing action trust for Chingford Hall estate, I have found that people are buoyed up with enthusiasm about the scheme—I know that my hon. Friend the Minister can attest to that as he recently visited the area. Furthermore, those who run it, both from the Hoe street headquarters and from Chingford Hall estate itself, show what can happen when people are in charge who want to do something for those who live on an estate and want to help them to solve some of the worse problems. That is a great bonus, and shows how a Conservative policy is working well.
In support of Conservative policies over the past 12 years or so, particularly now, it must also be said that Government expenditure on housing is a significant £8·5 billion. That includes £2·3 billion for the Housing Corporation, £1·5 billion for local authorities and £3·7 billion for housing revenue account subsidy. That shows clearly the Government's commitment to housing.
Others have talked at great length about homelessness, but the Government's record on that, particularly their recent record, is one on which they can stand up and be counted. Single Homelessness in London, in its recent annual report, stated:
Extra resources which the rough sleepers' initiative and the homeless mentally ill initiative are providing a welcome recognition by central Government of the scale of the problem in central London.
That is significant.
I know that my hon. Friend the Minister has spoken already about those two initiatives, but I shall highlight some points about them. Some £96 million will be provided for the rough sleepers initiative and that should give 2,900 spaces in permanent or leased accommodation and 900 in hostels and emergency accommodation. Some £20 million will be made available over the three years for the mentally ill initiative, to develop a new housing advisory service.
I support the amendment and the Government's housing policy. Building on what has been achieved over the past 12 years, it will take us more and more down to the level of individuals looking after themselves while those who cannot are supported and directed through group initiatives and housing associations rather than through councils.

Mr. Paul Tyler: I shall make a brief contribution because I suspect that others wish to speak before the winding-up speeches.
There has been an unusual degree of three-party agreement today. My colleagues and I did not expect to find ourselves in agreement with the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Streeter), who offered words of wisdom to lenders. They must watch their reputations carefully in the coming weeks to see that they pass on the interest rate cuts that they have now been permitted.
I was also extremely surprised to find that I agreed with the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Evans) who made an eloquent plea on behalf of rural areas. When I worked for Shelter in the south-west, my primary work was centred on Plymouth—the city represented by you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the hon. Member for Sutton. If I still had that job, however, it would now take me as much to the rural areas and the market towns as to the large cities. There are rough speakers—I mean sleepers —in almost every market town; there may be rough speakers, too, at some hours of the night, it depends on when one disturbs them. When I spent time on a sleep-out, I was staggered to find how many full-time professional rough sleepers there were compared with a once-or-twice amateur like me.
The rural areas face a serious homeless problem. The excellent work conducted by Glen Bramley and his team at Bristol university in 1990 and 1991 has shown that up to one third of new households in the rural areas require rented accommodation. Those people will not be accommodated through the right-to-buy provisions or as a result of liberating the now frozen owner-occupied market. More than half of those newly formed households simply cannot afford the full value of anything on the market, even now with so many depressed house prices.
The work undertaken by Action for Communities in Rural England—ACRE—estimates that about 377,000 homes will be required either immediately or in the next five years in rural areas. Recently, I visited rural areas in north Yorkshire, Cumbria, Scotland and in my home area of Cornwall. It is clear to me that we must have a continual programme to provide rented accommodation of all sorts for those communities.
In recent years, the Minister has not shown himself to be dogmatic about the split between the rented and owner-occupied sector. He is a man of great stature, because he listens to both sides of the House on this subject


[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear".] I agree with the Minister's colleagues. In the months ahead, we look to him to be flexible and to ensure that if the new programmes are not successful he will be prepared to argue with his colleagues at the Department and in the Cabinet for a bigger slice of the cake for those who seek rented accommodation.
The study undertaken by the Department of the Environment of communities with populations of fewer than 3,000 has revealed that they will need far more new homes than are currently proposed. In the housing association rental programmes for 1991–92 and for 1992–93, the DOE figure show that 2,436 additional housing units will be provided under the supplementary credit approval scheme. That number will be insufficient to meet the needs of those areas. In Cambridgeshire, for example, only 106 new units will become available; in Cheshire, Cumbria and Cornwall the numbers available will be 38, 51 and 78 respectively. Those numbers are a drop in the ocean. When one considers all the forms of social mix and occupation that make up the rural areas, I cannot believe that the vast majority will be able to make the dramatic shift from the rented to owner-occupied sector—their needs cannot be met.
Good work has been done by the House-Builders Federation, the Association of District Councils and others to try to find ways in which matters can be improved, but the social and housing mixture is extremely difficult to achieve for legal, funding and planning reasons.
In the Chancellor's statement last week some limited help was offered to the hard-pressed building industry. My hon. Friend the Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) has already drawn attention to the problems of that industry. It is labour intensive and if more money had been made available to it immediately, that could have had a major impact not only on the housing problem but on the jobless totals in many areas.
The disappointment felt at the inability to invest the historic receipts from council house sales is particularly great in rural areas, because many authorities there have few suitable properties still for sale. In the present depressed state of the rural economy, even fewer authorities expect their tenants to be able to exercise their right to buy. I note what the Minister said about Rita, but she will have to work extremely hard in the coming months if an effective equalisation of opportunities is to be offered to people in rural areas.
As the Minister will know, there has been cross-party support in the south-west—I am surprised that the hon. Member for Sutton did not refer to this—for the campaign by The Western Morning Newsto obtain a phased release of council house receipts. That approach would be a much more sane and effective way in which to achieve the investment in housing that is required in the rural south-west.
The rural areas have one national champion when it comes to job opportunities, help for small businesses and housing—the Rural Development Commission. That excellent body has recently produced an excellent report entitled "Homelessness in Rural Areas". It undertook special studies of Derbyshire, Hertfordshire, Shropshire, Northumberland, Lincolnshire and north Cornwall.
In the particular section relating to my area of the country, that exhaustive report showed that 90 per cent. of applicants for housing had incomes of less than £10,000 a year, 63 per cent. had incomes of less than £6,000 and 36 per cent. relied solely on pensions or benefits. The waiting

list in the area has grown at the rate of 80 individuals or families a month. In recent months, repossessions have had a marked effect on the problem.
One would think that the Rural Development Commission, given its excellent pioneering work—which I acknowledge happens to be of particular interest to my constituency—would be given additional funds to help it to meet its housing responsibilities. But what did we find in the autumn statement? Its modest budget of some £40 million is to be cut by £2 million. That organisation is the only one that can effectively try to overcome the homeless problem in some of the lowest income areas, but its budget is to be cut. It is a sad day when such effective organisations, with such small means, find that they are at the mercy of the Chancellor's axe.
When the Prime Minister, who represents a rural constituency, took over from someone whose suburbanity was a terrible example to us all, some of us hoped that the country areas would get a fair crack of the whip. We have had a sad few days since the autumn statement because, once again, the rural areas will be deprived of expert help, limited though it was, which it received and which was designed to try to ensure that they got a fair slice of the housing action.

Mr. Bernard Jenkin: It is clear from the speeches of the hon. Members for Cornwall, North (Mr. Tyler) and for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth) that this subject is becoming less and less of a purely party political issue. The hon. Member for Knowsley, North was keen to emphasise that Labour authorities have now come round to the idea of housing associations, and the hon. Member for Cornwall, North even paid warm tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister. I take it as progress that other parties are coming round to our way of thinking.
Colchester borough council is a hung council that takes a non-party political approach to its small but acute homelessness problem. It is one of the key issues in my constituency and the reason for that is simple: the vast majority of people live in excellent housing, which makes it all the more unacceptable that an albeit tiny minority should be excluded from that element of prosperity. All parties on the council are determined to resolve the problem and are committed to using housing associations to achieve that end. There is a remarkable lack of party dogma.
My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, South and Maldon (Mr. Whittingdale) and I have been invited to attend a meeting with the council on Friday to discuss how to make further progress. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister, in the spirit of political co-operation between all the parties, to approve an application for additional credit under the Government's estate action programme.
I shall be brief so that the replies can commence. I had intended to comment in detail on housing need in Colchester and what is already being achieved by housing associations. In summary, a total of £15 million is being spent, with £8 million coming from the Housing Corporation. Considerable progress is being made. The estate action programme on the Greenstead estate involves 3,200 properties and a £2 million programme of mainly flats and maisonettes. The problems are familiar and it is


worth emphasising that not all acute housing problems are in our inner cities; there are just as many in the surrounding towns and the rural areas.
The environment has deteriorated and, for no apparent reason, vandalism and crime are on the increase. The people on the Greenstead estate have an undeserved reputation. They want to improve their area. I know that many of those people are as decent and law-abiding as any anywhere in the constituency and they deserve better. The council has developed plans in close co-operation with the estate's residents and there is evidence of a strong desire for greater self-determination and for the area to recover its standing. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to consider the application favourably.
There are also certain actions that we can urge the council to take. It could sell its assets and make use of the proposals in the autumn statement. It could sell the bus company and Colchester Contract Services to raise the necessary capital. All those issues and many others will be discussed at the meeting on Friday.
I commend the Government amendment to the House.

Mr. Nigel Jones: It is a great pleasure for me to have the opportunity to reply to the debate. It has been a good debate. However, I am disappointed that only a few hon. Members have attended it. I hope that it is not a signal to the wider audience that the House does not take seriously the subject of homelessness and the housing crisis. It is a matter that we should take very seriously. My hon. Friend the Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) said that a home is a right, not a concession.
Many people in my constituency and elsewhere fear buying houses while there is a lack of confidence in the housing market. They have three main fears. The first is that prices will continue to fall—and over the past two months there have been large falls. Secondly, there is the continuing fear of unemployment—and a report published today shows that 46 per cent. of people fear that they could lose their jobs. Thirdly, there is a fear of negative equity —and my hon. Friend said that one in seven households currently live in a property worth less than the mortgage.
One Conservative Member accused the Liberal Democrats of wanting to abolish mortgage interest tax relief. My hon. Friend dealt with that suggestion so firmly that Conservative Members did not mention it again. I want to lay the matter firmly to rest. Our manifesto at the general election said that we would
introduce housing cost relief weighted towards those most in need and available to house buyers and renters. This will replace mortgage tax relief for future home buyers …People holding mortgages will be protected: they will have the choice of moving to housing cost relief or continuing to receive mortgage interest tax relief.
I hope that that clarifies the matter for Conservative Members, who clearly have not read our manifesto. I must admit that I have not read the Conservative party manifesto, but I prefer non-fiction.
I was grateful for some of the Minister's comments. I am enjoying working alongside him and other familiar faces on the Committee considering the Housing and Urban Development Bill. I am sure that we will be on that Committee for a number of months to come, so it is important that we maintain good relations.
I welcomed the Minister's comment that no one should have to sleep rough, but I question the cut in funds for the rough sleeping initiative which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Southwark and Bermondsey pointed out, was announced on Thursday. I am concerned about the provision in the autumn statement of £750 million to buy 20,000 vacant houses. I take seriously the comments of the hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth) about delays and the Government's possible lack of ability to meet that target. The key intervention was that by the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Raynsford), who pointed out that, during the time it takes to buy those 20,000 homes, it is likely that there will be more than 20,000 further repossessions. The scheme is a drop in the ocean.
The hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) said that, on the 1979 basis for calculating unemployment, the true unemployment figure is now in excess of 4 million. It is right to link the unemployment rate with the number of houses on the market and the number of people in financial difficulty. The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the curious logic in the Housing and Urban Development Bill—which we shall seek to amend—where the Government propose to take away the rights of tenants through compulsory competitive tendering.
When the Minister replies, will he deal with the point about accumulated receipts of £5·5 billion? It is the crux of the matter. It is well known that the best and most sure way out of a recession is through the construction industry. A phased relief of £5·5 billion in councils' bank accounts throughout the country would get the building industry back to work, with all that that means.

Mr. Michael Stephen: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Jones: I will not give way as I am short of time and I have a great deal of ground to cover.
If that £5·5 billion were released in a phased way, it would enable houses currently requiring repairs to be brought back into use. It would allow housing associations and councils to make an impact on their waiting lists. It would also put back in work many of those in the construction industry who have lost their jobs.
A family who recently visited my constituency surgery believed that the way to instant riches was to buy their council house, so in 1987 they voted Conservative and bought their property the following year. The husband was a skilled bricklayer, but in 1989 he lost his job and the family home was repossessed.
That family found themselves again on the local council's books, and the home that they occupied as council tenants for 11 years was left empty. Every Sunday, the family used to visit their old house and look through the front windows of the property that was once their home. If they had not believed Conservative party propaganda, they would still be contented council tenants.
That family was placed in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, which had a serious effect on their health, for 56 weeks—at a cost to the council of £18,000. That is the economics of the situation.

Mr. Stephen: Will the hon. Gentleman give way now?

Mr. Jones: No, because I have much more ground to cover.
The most remarkable contribution in today's debate was that of the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr.


Evans). Many of his comments might lead one to think that he had a place on this side of the House. I agree with him that local authorities must be efficient in collecting rent and in turning round property. I pay tribute to Cheltenham local authority, which has cut the time between lets from seven weeks to four weeks and is reducing it still further. As a consequence, the number of families in bed-and-breakfast accommodation has also fallen and continues to do so. I point out that the council is controlled by Liberal Democrats, and that is Liberal Democrat policy in action.
The hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Ms. Jackson) said that she would like to see £1·75 billion of receipts released. She is right to argue that, though I believe—because I was absent from the Chamber—that the hon. Lady confused some of her figures.
The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor summed up the situation when he asserted that there is a housing crisis and that after 13 years in power it is unacceptable that under the Government there are so many individuals and families in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. I am sure that everyone on this side of the House agrees with that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Southwark and Bermondsey said that the purpose of housing policy is to provide a decent home for everyone, on a tenure of their choice, and at a price that they can afford. By any measure, the Government have failed to do that. The autumn statement does not address the issue. As the hon. Member for Leeds, West said, the autumn statement is a snowflake on an iceberg. I urge right hon. and hon. Members to reject the Government amendment and to support our motion.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Tony Baldry): As Liberal Democrats appear to have spent most of the weekend trying to change the topic of today's debate, I have little doubt that they now regret choosing the subject of housing. Even as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House was announcing last Thursday the business of the House for this week, a headline in the Evening Standard was proclaiming "Billions to boost housing". A front page article reported:
Chancellor Norman Lamont pumped billions into the housing industry today to spearhead his drive for the economic recovery of Britain.
Even Labour Members were compelled to acknowledge that, as a result of the autumn statement, there will be more money for housing than was set out in our general election manifesto.
Government spending plans provide for all the commitments in our manifesto to be met, including more housing action trusts and continuing help for rough sleepers—and I may explain to the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones) that £86 million for the rough-sleeper programme that was not there before is not a cut. There will be further large-scale voluntary transfers of council housing and increased output of social housing.
Capital spending on housing funded through the Housing Corporation increased this year by £600 million to produce an immediate boost to the housing market, and nearly £6 billion will be spent over the next three years. We estimate that that will enable substantially more than the 153,000 homes forecast in our manifesto to be provided over that three-year period—and the Government, rightly, will be looking to lever in more private finance in support of the £7·5 billion of public capital spending to be made

this year and over the public expenditure survey period. That is expected to produce a total of £10·5 billion of spending on new social housing across four years for people in need.
Anyone reading the speech by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) would be disappointed. It contained no new ideas or suggestions, but was just a clutch of recycled speeches and other people's press releases. The hon. Member for Cheltenham regretted the paucity of attendance for this debate, and I agree. Three out of the motion's six sponsors have failed to make an appearance, such is their considerable interest in housing matters. It would be interesting to know where the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown), the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile), and the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) might be. Perhaps they hoped that they would be successful in changing the topic of today's debate.
The absence of new ideas and lack of interest from the Opposition Benches is not surprising. It is often the case that, when Opposition parties have local responsibilities for housing, their record is truly appalling. Five per cent. of Hackney's housing stock—2,000 homes—stands empty and a further 1,200 homes are illegally occupied. The council has no clue who lives in those properties. That council has 3,200 empty or illegally-occupied properties, but its homeless total is just under 2,000. That council could house them all and still have some change.
The Liberals are no better. Tower Hamlets has a 4·5 per cent. void rate, or 1,895 houses. That is rather more than the total of 1,669 persons that council had in temporary accommodation at the last count.
The 1990 auditor's report described Islington council as "incompetent". He mentioned eight flats leased from private owners to alleviate homelessness that the council had left empty for one and a half years. A report by a Queen's Counsel ommented that the council had
the cash office staffed by the innumerate, the filing done by the disorganised, and the reception in the care of the surly and charmless.
Basil Fawlty on the rates.
Islington council also paid a firm to maintain communal television aerials in a block of council flats that has been demolished 10 years previously, and £25,000 on constructing a 40-yard cycle track the wrong way down a one-way street. Islington council also had £10 million of usable capital housing receipts but spent it elsewhere.
As was made clear by the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle)—whom we welcome to the Dispatch Box for the first time—Labour is still confused about its approach to capital receipts. As Inside Housing reported in a recent issue:
In the run-up to the election, Clive Soley ran into trouble with the leadership when he was quoted as saying that a redefinition of the public sector borrowing requirement, taking council capital receipts out of the calculation, was on the party's agenda. Mr. Battle is obviously keen to avoid similar problems. Redefinition of the PSBR, which could theoretically release capital receipts for housing, is clearly not something Mr. Battle is prepared to argue for today. 'Those are the arguments that the Treasury team are going to have to sort out, not me as the Housing spokesman. At the moment, redefinition is not on Labour's agenda. It is not one of my priorities.' And when asked for clarification today, he said that that approach still stands.


We welcome the opportunity given by today's debate to make clear our commitment to the promotion of greater owner-occupation, the widening of choice for tenants and an increase in the number of homes available for rent.

Mr. Stephen: Does my hon. Friend agree that there would be no capital receipts from council house sales if Labour and the Liberal Democrats had had their way, because there would have been no council house sales?

Mr. Baldry: My hon. Friend has made a good point: there would be little choice and opportunity in housing if the Opposition had had their way.
Our housing policies are good news for tenants, because they provide an opportunity and choice—

Mr. Pike: I assure the Minister that our position on the public sector borrowing requirement and on capital receipts is quite clear. In view of the Government's expenditure plans—announced last week by the Chancellor of the Exchequer—may I ask why it is all right for them to take into account over the next few years the use of capital receipts gained from the sale of public assets? What will the Government do when they have no more public assets to sell?

Mr. Baldry: The hon. Gentleman has made a brave attempt to rescue his hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West. His hon. Friend failed earlier today, and the hon. Gentleman has failed now.
As I have said, our housing policies are good news for tenants. They provide more opportunity and more choice. Let me add that the proposed increase contained in next year's rent guidelines is less, in cash terms, than last year's increase. We are revolutionising the management of council housing and flats; we are giving tenants new rights, such as the right to improve and an improved right to repair; we are continuing to invest millions of pounds in estate action—and in housing action trusts, which concentrate resources on the worst council estates. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin) that I will give careful attention to his request for further implementation of the estate action programme in his area. I am sure that his local authority, like every other, will want to take full advantage of the opportunities provided by the capital partnership scheme.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Duncan-Smith) has direct experience of tenants' aspirations in his constituency and nearby. He reinforced the welcome given by those tenants for Government initiatives such as the establishment of housing action trusts—initiatives that Labour voted against, campaigned against and would have denied tenants. Only our policies are good news for tenants; only our policies provide choice.

Mr. George Howarth: Earlier, I asked the Minister a question which he failed to answer. Let me ask it again. If the money that has been targeted at the Housing Corporation with a view to the acquisition of 20,000 properties fails to materialise, will the Minister ensure that the underspend is carried forward into the following two years—from which much of it has been taken?

Mr. Baldry: The hon. Gentleman's speech would have done Cassandra proud. I shall deal with it in a moment.
Our policies are good news for home owners. Following a further fall in interest rates, the cost of home loans is now at a 20-year low. Barratt Homes has announced a 30-year mortgage rate low of 6·5 per cent.; the majority of Abbey National mortgage customers will be paying their lowest-ever rate by Christmas; housing-market experts now expect loans to dip below 6 per cent., especially for first-time buyers. Little wonder that the chief executive of the Halifax building society stated, immediately after the autumn statement, that the 7 per cent. bank base rate was
very good news for the housing market—it is what we have been calling for
As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Streeter) rightly pointed out, building societies should pass on the benefit of interest-rate cuts to home owners in lower mortgage rates as soon as possible. I am glad to say that, when my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment met mortgage lenders this morning, all the mortgage lenders confirmed that they would play a full and constructive part in the initiative for the purchase of empty properties.
The housing market will also be helped by the Chancellor's £750 million package to enable housing associations to buy some 20,000 empty homes, including new homes and repossessed properties. That, in turn, will provide houses for families in great need. The £750 million will benefit the housing market by helping those in housing need, making it easier for some people to move and giving relief to mortgage lenders. The prospect of 20,000 families in housing need being housed sooner rather than later must be good news.
As the chairman of the Housing Corporation, Sir Christopher Benson, has observed, this
has given the Housing Corporation the opportunity they are seeking—to help the revival of the housing market and to help people in housing need.
Let me tell the hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth) that building societies are queueing up to start positive negotiations with housing associations, to enable them to meet our target of 20,000 as soon as possible.

Mr. Simon Hughes: The Minister misrepresented the truth about which of my colleagues were present earlier. Quite apart from that, however, does he accept that he has not delivered the sort of response that people outside expect? First, it may be a token of the Government's commitment that none of the amendment's signatories has been present for any of the debate—including the Secretary of State for the Environment, who is responsible for housing. Secondly, although we accept, along with others outside the House, that welcome measures were announced on Thursday, those measures are nothing in comparison with the scale of the current housing problem; and that is what the Minister has so far failed to recognise.

Mr. Baldry: The hon. Gentleman has expressed regret about Conservative attendance. He should look first to his own Benches: he will note that a significant number of the motion's sponsors are not present on what is, after all, a Liberal Democrat Supply day, having spent most of the weekend trying to persuade the House authorities to change the topic of the debate to anything other than housing.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Evans) reminded us that the autumn statement provided not just more money for England, but more


money for Scotland and Wales. Wales is being provided with £38 million to purchase repossessed properties. Yes, we will rise to the challenge presented by rural housing: the capital partnership scheme will give us an opportunity to work together with more rural local authorities, presenting rural housing initiatives and responding to local housing needs.
Let me tell the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Tyler) that rural areas have a champion: the Government. Our manifesto commitment to spend nearly £6 billion through the Housing Corporation to provide 153,000 homes over the next few years will be more than that. We now expect the Housing Corporation to provide some 165,000 further homes to rent. Local authorities will be able to use 100 per cent. of capital receipts, obtained between now and 1 December 1993. We anticipate that that will release at least £1 billion for spending on housing.
We have launched the capital partnership scheme to reinforce local authorities' incentives to spend their money on areas such as housing, which will be of lasting benefit to their communities. The scheme will be worth up to £600 million next year. An increase in Housing Corporation spending to well over £2 billion this year, together with further leverage of private finance, is expected to provide some £10·5 billion of public and private spending on new social housing.
We are investing in housing, and we are enabling others to do so. The money invested will allow us to tackle rundown council housing; it will provide new opportunities to help families on local authority waiting, lists, and will enable more to be done for the homeless; and it will help and encourage the construction industry.
We are a Government committed to tackling the problem of homelessness: a Government determined to continue to take action to ensure that no one in our society needs to sleep rough, and determined that every family should have a decent home in which to live. The initiatives that we are implementing, the policies that we have announced and the money that we have made available are good news for families in need of housing, good news for tenants of rundown social housing, good news for the house-building industry and good news for the housing market. I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to support the amendment.

Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—

The House divided: Ayes 55, Noes 187.

Division No. 86]
[6.59 pm


AYES


Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)
Hogg, Norman (Cumbernauld)


Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy
Hood, Jimmy


Ashton, Joe
Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)


Barnes, Harry
Hughes, Simon (Southwark)


Bayley, Hugh
Jackson, Helen (Shef'ld, H)


Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)
Johnston, Sir Russell


Corbyn, Jeremy
Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)


Cryer, Bob
Jones, leuan Wyn (Ynys Môn)


Cummings, John
Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)


Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)
Kennedy, Charles (Ross.C&S)


Dafis, Cynog
Kilfoyle, Peter


Davis, Terry (B'ham, H'dge H'l)
Llwyd, Eltyn


Denham, John
Lynne, Ms Liz


Ewing, Mrs Margaret
Macdonald, Calum


Foster, Don (Bath)
McFall, John


Godman, Dr Norman A.
Madden, Max


Hall, Mike
Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)


Harvey, Nick
Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll Bute)


Hoey, Kate
Morris, Estelle (B'ham Yardley)





O'Brien, Michael (N W'kshire)
Wallace, James


Olner, William
Wardell Gareth (Gower)


Purchase, Ken
Wareing, Robert N


Raynsford, Nick
Wicks, Malcolm


Rooker, Jeff
Wigley, Dafydd


Short, Clare
Winnick, David


Skinner, Dennis



Spearing, Nigel
Tellers for the Ayes:


Steel, Rt Hon Sir David
Mr. Archy Kirkwood and Mr. Alex Carlile.


Taylor, Matthew (Truro)



Tyler, Paul





NOES


Alexander, Richard
Forth, Eric


Amess, David
Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)


Ancram, Michael
Freeman, Roger


Arbuthnot, James
French, Douglas


Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)
Gale, Roger


Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)
Gallie, Phil


Ashby, David
Gill, Christopher


Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)
Gillan, Cheryl


Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)
Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles


Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)
Gorman, Mrs Teresa


Baker, Nicholas (Dorset North)
Gorst, John


Baldry, Tony
Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)


Banks, Matthew (Southport)
Greenway, John (Ryedale)


Bates, Michael
Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)


Bendall, Vivian
Grylls, Sir Michael


Beresford, Sir Paul
Hague, William


Blackburn, Dr John G.
Hamilton, Rt Hon Archie (Epsom)


Bonsor, Sir Nicholas
Hannam, Sir John


Booth, Hartley
Hargreaves, Andrew


Boswell, Tim
Harris, David


Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)
Haselhurst, Alan


Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia
Hawkins, Nick


Bowis, John
Hawksley, Warren


Brandreth, Gyles
Heald, Oliver


Brazier, Julian
Heathcoat-Amory, David


Bright, Graham
Hendry, Charles


Brooke, Rt Hon Peter
Hicks, Robert


Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)
Hill, James (Southampton Test)


Browning, Mrs. Angela
Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas (G'tham)


Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)
Horam, John


Burns, Simon
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)


Burt, Alistair
Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)


Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Hunter, Andrew


Carrington, Matthew
Jenkin, Bernard


Chaplin, Mrs Judith
Jessel, Toby


Chapman, Sydney
Jones, Robert B. (W Hertfdshr)


Clappison, James
Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine


Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)
Kirkhope, Timothy


Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ruclif)
Knapman, Roger


Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey
Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)


Colvin, Michael
Knight, Greg (Derby N)


Congdon, David
Knight, Dame Jill (Bir'm E'st'n)


Conway, Derek
Kynoch, George (Kincardine)


Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)
Lawrence, Sir Ivan


Coombs, Simon (Swindon)
Legg, Barry


Cope, Rt Hon Sir John
Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)


Cormack, Patrick
Lidington, David


Cran, James
Lightbown, David


Currie, Mrs Edwina (S D'by'ire)
Lilley, Rt Hon Peter


Davies, Quentin (Stamford)
Lord, Michael


Davis, David (Boothferry)
Luff, Peter


Day, Stephen
MacGregor, Rt Hon John


Deva, Nirj Joseph
McLoughlin, Patrick


Devlin, Tim
Madel, David


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Maitland, Lady Olga


Dover, Den
Mans, Keith


Duncan, Alan
Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)


Duncan-Smith, Iain
Martin, David (Portsmouth S)


Dykes, Hugh
Merchant, Piers


Elletson, Harold
Milligan, Stephen


Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)
Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)


Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)
Moate, Roger


Fabricant, Michael
Montgomery, Sir Fergus


Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas
Nelson, Anthony


Fenner, Dame Peggy
Neubert, Sir Michael


Fishburn, Dudley
Nicholson, David (Taunton)


Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)
Norris, Steve






Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley
Thomason, Roy


Patnick, Irvine
Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)


Pawsey, James
Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)


Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth
Thornton, Sir Malcolm


Pickles, Eric
Townsend, Cyril D. (Bexl'yh'th)


Porter, David (Waveney)
Trend, Michael


Powell, William (Corby)
Trotter, Neville


Richards, Rod
Twinn, Dr Ian


Riddick, Graham
Vaughan, Sir Gerard


Rifkind, Rt Hon. Malcolm
Walden, George


Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)
Waller, Gary


Robinson, Mark (Somerton)
Ward, John


Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)
Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)


Ryder, Rt Hon Richard
Waterson, Nigel


Shaw, David (Dover)
Watts, John


Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)
Wells, Bowen


Sims, Roger
Wheeler, Sir John


Skeet, Sir Trevor
Whittingdale, John


Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)
Widdecombe, Ann


Speed, Sir Keith
Wilkinson, John


Spencer, Sir Derek
Willetts, David


Spink, Dr Robert
Wood, Timothy


Sproat, Iain
Yeo, Tim


Stephen, Michael
Young, Sir George (Acton)


Stern, Michael



Stewart, Allan
Tellers for the Noes:


Streeter, Gary
Mr. Robert G. Hughes and Mr. Andrew Mackay.


Sweeney, Walter



Sykes, John

Question accordingly negatived.

Question, That the proposed words be there added,put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 30 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.

MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.

Resolved:
That this House notes the Government's continuing commitment to housing policies designed to ensure that a decent home is within reach of every family, and in particular to promoting the growth of owner-occupation, widening choice for tenants, and improving value-for-money and targeting of public expenditure; and especially welcomes the measures announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Autumn Statement which—consistently with the need to maintain tight control of public spending in the interests of the economy and the taxpayer—will contribute to stabilizing the housing market, will increase the supply of social housing thereby helping homeless families, and will promote investment in renovation of run-down council estates.

Former Yugoslavia

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse): Madam Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

Mr. Menzies Campbell: I beg to move,
That this House regrets that the response of the European Community, and notably Her Majesty's Government, since it has assumed the Presidency, to the crisis in former Yugoslavia has been too little and too late; is appalled by the continuing slaughter in Bosnia-Herzegovina; is deeply concerned about the impact of winter in Sarajevo and other cities, where failure to protect and stockpile food will be paid for in lives; condemns the barbaric policy of ethnic cleansing; considers that the first priority must he to suppress the ferocity of the fighting by taking over the air space above Bosnia-Herzegovina under UN mandate and if necessary using it to prevent the use of heavy weapons and aircraft for offensive purposes; calls for the effective policing of the Danube to enforce sanctions; congratulates British troops on humanitarian protection for relief convoys; insists however that they must have full capacity for retaliation including, if necessary, air cover; insists that Her Majesty's Government must respond much more generously to the refugee problem, both financially and in the numbers accepted; is deeply concerned that the conflict may soon spread to Kosovo and Macedonia; and calls on Her Majesty's Government to co-ordinate a European Community wide strategy for refugees as proposed by Germany and for further urgent and appropriate action.
I suspect that many people in Europe allowed themselves a period of self-congratulation immediately after the break-up of the Warsaw pact, when the cold war came to an end and, in particular, when European countries participated successfully in the United Nations operation in the middle east to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. But the sense of complacency that these events may have created has been rudely interrupted by the break-up of Yugoslavia into its historical components, fuelled by ethnic hatred of the most virulent kind. On our television screens, atrocity piled on atrocity, inhumanity, barbarism and cruelty have been commonplace.
Which of us can be content with the response of the international community? Which of us believes that Europe has done all that it can? Does any hon. Member feel no sense of shame about our niggardly attitude to refugees?
British troops are at last arriving in Bosnia, but it is right to ask ourselves in what circumstances they do so and for what purpose.

Mr. David Winnick: The hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned refugees, and I share his views on visa restrictions. Is he aware that many hon. Members—certainly myself—have been repeatedly ringing the Home Secretary's Private Office and the Under-Secretary's Private Office about the 180 refugees who are isolated and some of whose children may die? In view of the ambiguous nature of the decision about whether to allow them to enter and all the other facts, should not those 180 refugees be allowed to come here as quickly as possible for the most humanitarian reasons?

Mr. Campbell: The hon. Gentleman makes a most eloquent plea, and I shall put it in context.
Let us consider how many refugees we are being asked to take compared with the numbers that countries surrounding Yugoslavia have felt obliged to take. Is not it


time for a generous response from the United Kingdom? I suspect that it would do us much good in the international community. It would do us much good in Europe if some of our partners felt that we were as willing to assume these burdens as they have been. I think in particular of the burden that Germany has assumed and of some of the social difficulties that have resulted. It is a moment for some warmth of spirit, but so far we have seen little evidence of it from Ministers.
Our troops have gone to keep the peace. It is a peacekeeping operation, but we must ask ourselves what peace there is to keep. The decision to send British troops was taken many weeks ago, yet some of the concerns that were expressed in early September still have not been adequately met. I assert, I believe without contradiction, that we have no right to place brave men and women in circumstances where they risk their lives without giving them the clearest possible military objectives, the equipment and numbers to meet those objectives and, if necessary, naval and air support. It is said that our troops are in Yugoslavia for a humanitarian purpose—to assist the United Nations in ensuring that aid gets through. Those are desirable motives, but they are not clear-cut military objectives.
There has been much debate about the precise terms of the rules of engagement. I would not ask the Minister of State for the Armed Forces to be express about the terms of the rules of engagement—those who know about these matters know that it is by no means sensible to narrate in detail the terms of engagement—but I must ask him to confirm that the rules of engagement, as framed, conform to the nature of the military task that we are asking our troops to undertake.
It is one thing to issue rules of engagement based on self-defence and on negotiating a right of passage for convoys, but it is a quite different thing when, as happened at the weekend, United Kingdom forces are considered for the escort of refugees. Under what rules of engagement would our troops have conducted that exercise? If refugees in the charge of United Kingdom troops were fired upon, it seems self-evident that the troops would have returned fire. Would that be consistent with the rules of engagement under which they would have had to operate if the task of escorting refugees had been assigned to them?
We have sent to Bosnia Senator tanks and Warrior infantry fighting vehicles, but why did it take so long for those vehicles to get there? Why are men and vehicles having to familiarise themselves in winter conditions? How much easier it would have been if troops and their equipment had been deployed earlier.
You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will have heard colourful stories in the aftermath of the Gulf war about the performance of some British Army vehicles and how some of them were kept going only by cannibalising others in Europe to the extent that, as has been said, perhaps somewhat flippantly, there were hardly half a dozen decent tanks left in Europe. We must have guarantees about the availability of spare parts and the nature of the maintenance of vehicles, on which the lives of our troops depend.
I must ask the Minister—and I do so with some reticence because these are issues that people are reluctant to discuss openly and in public—what assessment has been made about the possibility of casualties? Will all medical evacuations be effected using Sea King helicopters, which

have now been deployed offshore? If that is the case, what assessment has been made of the capability of that aircraft to fly in all circumstances in the Yugoslavian winter?
There are more fundamental questions. On what basis was the number of 1,800 arrived at? What assessment of the task was made in advance of a decision about those numbers? Is it true, as some with confidence have asserted, that the size of the force that the United Kingdom should deploy was determined before the nature of the task had been properly defined? What prompted the increase from 1,800 to the present figure of 2,400? Will the Minister tell the House whether there are any plans to send more troops?
If I recall correctly, the Secretary of State for Defence said to the Defence Select Committee that the initial deployment was for six months and that there might be a further six months of deployment, but that thereafter the matter would have to be reconsidered. If that is the case, are there any plans to send more troops?
What contingency plans are being discussed if, for example, as is not beyond the bounds of possibility, the United Nations were to take the view that the mass evacuation of refugees was necessary? Would the British troops, sent for humanitarian purposes to safeguard the passage of convoys, be turned to other tasks such as guarding airfields or similar tasks? If that is contemplated, are we satisfied that the equipment with which they have been provided is adequate for that purpose?
When Vitez was chosen, it was some way back from the fighting. Now it is right in the middle of the fighting. What consequences will that have for the nature of the operations that British troops are able to carry out? In recent weeks, Canadian, French and Spanish troops have been prevented by irregulars from reaching the areas assigned to them by the United Nations so that deployment, according to United Nations resolution 776, has not yet been achieved.
In the context of the weekend, we must ask how far our troops are empowered to go. I put the matter in a way that is not unnecessarily fanciful. If a drunken militia man with a Kalashnikov stands in the way of a convoy threatening to fire on those who are guarding it, can he stop it, or are our troops empowered to take such steps as they believe necessary to secure the safe passage of that convoy? I ask that question for the following reason.
With the onset of winter, when the lives of many people will be at stake, there is bound to be far greater pressure to get access with food and supplies to those who are in need. Let us remember that it was only when winter came to the people of northern Iraq that public opinion and international opinion were prompted to take the necessary steps. If people are dying in the snow in Bosnia, there may be pressure on us here. That will be nothing compared with the pressure on our troops who will feel compelled to take the steps necessary to ensure that food and supplies get to those who need them most.
In the winter conditions, access to our troops will be more difficult. What steps will be taken to ensure logistical supplies to our troops? Someone who claims some expertise in the matter put it to me the other day that, in the winter in Yugoslavia, British troops might find themselves concentrating almost exclusively on achieving sufficient logistical support to maintain themselves, never mind distributing food and supplies to those who required them.
Let us consider the question of command and control. There are reports that there is some friction between the senior United Kingdom commander and General Morillon. It was always going to be a delicate relationship for reasons that those who understand the politics of NATO will clearly appreciate. Are we satisfied that that relationship is now on a proper military footing? The Minister has an obligation to confirm to the House that the Government are satisfied at the highest level that the command and control arrangements are properly drawn up for the most effective use of our troops and for the best protection that is available to them.
I turn to the question of air power. When the Secretary of State for Defence appeared before the Defence Select Committee, he was reticent when the point was put to him. I ask the Minister a direct question: if the United Kingdom commander on the ground needs air power to protect the lives of those under his command, will he have it? Have the arrangements been made? I do not ask the Minister to tell us from where or in what form—that information would necessarily require to be kept restricted. However, the House and the troops are entitled to know whether and in what circumstances they will have available to them the resources of the Alliance to protect them. I put the matter bluntly once more: if the commander on the ground needs to call down air strikes to protect United Kingdom troops, will he be able to do so? It is a straightforward question which deserves a straightforward answer.
In the context of air power, we know that the Serbs have used military aircraft. The United Nations has responded to that by declaring an air exclusion zone, but, contrary to the air exclusion zone we have established over southern Iraq, we have not yet willed the means to enforce such an exclusion zone in Yugoslavia. What use is an air exclusion zone unless it is enforceable? Will the Government today pledge themselves to ensure that the proper means of enforcing that relevant United Nations resolution will now be obtained?
It is uncharacteristic for such an operation to be carried on without a substantial contribution from the United States. Perhaps the fact that the United States has been locked in a seemingly interminable presidential election has had some influence on the nature and degree of its commitment. It is well known that the intelligence-gathering capability of the United States is second to none. I ask the Minister a direct question: can he tell the House whether, as a contribution to the United Kingdom's efforts in Yugoslavia, the United Kingdom is able to call on the intelligence-gathering efforts of the United States?
I am aware that I have concentrated on what some might think to be domestic military considerations. I hope that I may be excused. I do not lose sight of the scale of the problem, nor does the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, who estimates that 400,000 people could perish in Bosnia this winter. I want the United Kingdom troops to help to prevent that, but I want them to have every possible assistance as they try to do so.
As we say on every such occasion in the House, we know that we have professional, versatile and committed forces. We owe them a duty not to expose them to unnecessary risk. My questions this evening go right to the heart of the role and of the effectiveness of United

Kingdom forces in Bosnia. The more effective they can be, the more likely it is that the people of that troubled country will have a chance of survival.

The Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. Archie Hamilton): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
 "congratulates the European Community and notably Her Majesty's Government in its capacity as Presidency on its unremitting work for a solution of the crisis in the former Yugoslavia; is appalled by the continuing slaughter in Bosnia-Herzegovina; is deeply concerned about the impact of winter in Sarajevo and other cities and the need to ensure the safe passage of relief supplies to them; expresses its warm support for the work of British troops in providing protective support for relief convoys and is reassured to know that they will have the full right to self-defence; condemns the barbarous policy of ethnic cleansing; calls for the effective policing of the Danube to enforce sanctions; welcomes Her Majesty's Government's response to the refugee problem; is deeply concerned that the conflict may spread to Kosovo and Macedonia; and makes clear its strong support for the work of the international conference on the former Yugoslavia under the leadership of Lord Owen and Mr. Cyrus Vance.
The House will recall the Adjournment debate on 25 September when my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Defence set out the Government's response to the troubles that continue to beset the former Yugoslavia, as part of a wider effort by the international community. Attention was focused especially on developments in Bosnia where the conflict has been extremely bloody and seemingly intractable.
We can all agree that the overarching need is for a negotiated, political solution to the conflict. We cannot impose peace on Bosnia militarily—nor should we try; there is no military solution to the problem. The House is well aware of the continuing work of the international conference on the former Yugoslavia in Geneva, which is continuing to draw together the efforts of the European Community and the United Nations in close liaison, building on and following up the achievements of the London conference and bringing together the key leaders on whom all hopes of a settlement depend. Under its co-chairmen, Cyrus Vance and Lord Owen, the conference is pursuing a comprehensive programme of work aimed at helping the parties make progress towards a solution. That work must be made to succeed. Without a solution which the parties arrive at of their own free will, there will be no end to the tragedy that is Yugoslavia and no peace for the people of Bosnia.

Mr. Max Madden: Before the Minister develops his speech, will he answer the question reflected in the exchange between my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) and the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) about the position of the 183 people, predominantly women and children, who have applied for visas to visit the United Kingdom? Have those applications been granted or refused, or has no decision yet been taken?

Mr. Hamilton: No decision has been taken on that. The hon. Gentleman will have to await further announcements from my right hon. Friends on that matter. However, it is worth making the point that, since the conflict began in Yugoslavia, more than 40,000 Yugoslav nationals have arrived in this country already.

Mr. Paddy Ashdown: I want to comment on this point because a bus from just outside my constituency has been turned back. I remind the Minister that, as the hon. Members for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) and for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) have said, these people are predominantly women and children. One child has a tumour which needs almost immediate surgery to save its life. Those people have been sitting on buses in miserable, cold conditions. I believe that the Home Office has been considering the matter since Friday.
For goodness sake, surely it is time that a decision was taken. If the Home Office cannot take a decision tonight, when on earth will it take one?

Mr. Hamilton: I have been helped out by my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and I can now tell the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) what the position is. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department reviewed the applications for visas from that group of refugees this afternoon. He decided that six refugees with family ties in the United Kingdom should be granted visas. The two medical cases are still under review. The rest of the group will be refused visas to the United Kingdom.

Mr. Madden: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I raised this matter with Madam Speaker this afternoon and complained about a number of parliamentary questions that I had tabled for answer on Thursday which have not been answered and to which I have not even received holding replies. I received replies just a few minutes ago and they reveal that the situation is being handled in an extraordinary way. Those men, women and children have applied for visitor visas to visit the United Kingdom. However, for some extraordinary reason, the normal procedure has been hijacked by the Home Office. As we have just heard, the Home Secretary has taken an extremely long time to consider the applications.
I understand from the Minister's mumbled reply that the bulk of the applications have been refused. My point of order which is directly for you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is that normally, under an application for a visitor visa, the Foreign Office and entry clearance officers at our post in Vienna will consider the application. Why they have been referred in this case alone to London and to the Home Office I do not know. However, it is disgraceful. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, who is in the Chamber, should be—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is not a point of order for the Chair and I suspect that the hon. Gentleman appreciates that. No doubt Ministers will have taken note of what he said.

Mr. Madden: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department very conveniently slipped a piece of paper to the Minister of State for the Armed Forces. Will the Minister from the Home Department be able to intervene in the debate to tell us why on this occasion the Home Office has hijacked the normal procedures, thereby denying those men, women and children an opportunity—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman appreciates that that is not a point of order for the Chair. As I have said, no doubt the Government Front Bench will have heard what he said.

Mr. Hamilton: That is right.

Ms. Liz Lynne: Further to the other points raised, I understand that the refugee organisation based in Leeds sought advice from the Home Office before it sent the coaches. Two of the coaches were taken from Rochdale to the Austrian-Slovenian border. They have now returned. However, all assurances were sought from the Home Office. The Minister should make a statement to explain why Home Office Ministers said on Thursday in the House that visas will be required, but arrangements were made before Thursday.

Mr. Hamilton: Those questions should really be referred to my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary. I do not think that I can be expected to answer them. However, I tried to help the House on the matter.

Mr. Winnick: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Hamilton: No, I must make progress.
Progress is slow and attended by setbacks, as we always knew it would be, but there are encouraging developments. The new constitutional proposals for Bosnia tabled by Cyrus Vance and Lord Owen provide an excellent basis for negotiation. Discussions on a new constitution continue with all the parties in Geneva, despite the initial negative reaction from the Bosnian Serbs. We hope also that the parties will live up to the ceasefire agreement reached on 10 November by the Muslim, Croat and Serb military commanders under the auspices of the Geneva conference mixed military working group, although experience tells us that there are likely to be setbacks. Crucially, the agreements reached at the London conference and being reached, or still to be reached, in Geneva continue to provide benchmarks against which the parties' actions, and their willingness to pursue peace, can be judged.
Where the parties fall short, intense pressure needs to be applied. But that pressure must offer the prospect of an eventual solution, by making the warring sides see where their true interests lie. Military intervention of any kind offers no such prospect. Tighter sanctions if necessary, coupled with the effective enforcement of the arms embargo against the whole of the former Yugoslavia, must continue to be the main vehicle for bringing pressure to bear. Those measures will take time before they are truly effective, but I am confident that, despite sporadic reports of sanctions-busting, the tightening noose of the trade embargo will increasingly threaten any remaining economic and political stability in Serbia. Already shortages of essential materials have resulted in unemployment rising by 60 per cent. and inflation spiralling upwards.

Mr. Calum Macdonald: If the Minister is confident that those sanctions will have that kind of effect, how does he explain the fact that newspapers have reported today that petrol queues in Belgrade are almost non-existent and that a Community member, Greece. is colluding with sanctions-busting? If that is the case, how can the Minister possibly be so confident that sanctions over time will have any effect on the Serbian Government?

Mr. Hamilton: Sanctions are already having some effect. They are creating the most immense problems for the Serbian economy and will continue to do that. However, I take the hon. Gentleman's point. They must be made to work more effectively and that is how we must judge them. Measures are being taken to ensure that the sanctions work better.

Mr. Patrick Cormack: I would be grateful if my right hon. Friend the Minister could help me because I am puzzled. If what my right hon. Friend says is right, all the Serbian people—the good, bad and indifferent—are being slowly strangled to death. Would it not have been better to have done many months ago what many of us wanted and had one or two strikes at military targets within Serbia?

Mr. Hamilton: I shall refer to air strikes. However, the answer to my hon. Friend is that that would not have been right. If there had been strikes, the UN troops of whatever nationality would have been seen to be the enemy. We do not want that. We are not in the business of going to war with the Serbs. We are trying to do what we can to help with humanitarian relief. We do not want there to be a situation in which the only thing upon which the warring factions can agree is that the people in blue berets are the enemy and should be ambushed and shot at at every available opportunity.

Mr. Robert N. Wareing: Is the Minister aware of statements by Lord Owen that the military activity in Bosnia is being conducted not from Serbia, but by the Bosnian Serbs themselves? In fact, intervention on a military scale from Serbia has already ceased. Attacks upon military targets in Serbia would inevitably involve civilian casualties and drive the Serb population more and more into the hands of the extremists in Serbia.

Mr. Hamilton: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. That is absolutely true. We do not want to be in conflict with anybody in Serbia, in Bosnia or in any other parts of the former Yugoslavia. We are trying to negotiate humanitarian convoys through and to give protection to our troops who are involved in that. We do not intend to go to war with any of the factions in the former Yugoslavia. Indeed, it would be very regrettable if we got to the stage where we were involved in out-and-out conflict.

Ms. Kate Hoey: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Hamilton: I am sorry, I shall not give way. I must make progress or I shall never finish my speech.
The United Kingdom has taken the lead in providing technical assistance to the neighbouring countries where the sanctions have to be made to bite. The pressures brought to bear by sanctions will need to be increased further if Belgrade does not take action to halt and reverse the expansionist policies of the Bosnian Serbs in accordance with the commitments made at the London conference. We shall ensure that this is kept firmly on the agenda.
It is self-evident that an end to the fighting in Bosnia cannot be brought about by military intervention, given the nature of the conflict.

Mr. Cormack: My right hon. Friend the Minister is contradicting himself. A few moments ago, in response to

an intervention, he agreed that the Bosnian Serbs are no longer being egged on by the Serbs in Serbia. He now says that they are, which I believe to be the case. It cannot be both.

Mr. Hamilton: I was agreeing with the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing) that we do not want to become involved in conflict or fighting with any of the factions in Bosnia. I was not particularly agreeing with his point about the Bosnian Serbs, but we are not in the business of air strikes or getting involved in military action against any of the warring factions there.

Ms. Hoey: Does the Minister agree that, if any arms embargo is to work, it must start with a level playing field? Any arms embargo when Bosnians do not have arms and the Serbians do must mean that those who already have arms will use them to massacre the minority of the people in Bosnia who have no arms and who have not been allowed to acquire them by the international community.

Mr. Hamilton: I am not suggesting that we should supply arms to the Bosnian Muslims to even the playing field. I do not think that many people would sympathise with that. It would merely lead to an arms build-up right across the former Yugoslavia, which would not help anybody.
There is no single aggressor and no single front line. In Bosnia we are dealing with Serb against Croat, Muslim against Serb, and Croat against Muslim, not just within one country but within districts, towns and villages, within streets and even mixed blocks of flats. A massive armed intervention might suppress the violence for a time, but it would achieve no permanent result. It could not force people to live together in peace; its withdrawal would be the signal for a resumption of the conflict.
I do not believe that any hon. Member here today espouses that course of action. We could not achieve our lasting aim, and we would run the risk of launching our troops into a bloody civil war, from which withdrawal would be much easier said than done.
A lesser intervention would be unlikely to suppress the violence even temporarily. Domination of Bosnia airspace, a suggestion put forward in the motion and raised by the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell), would achieve little. The fighting in Bosnia is taking place on the ground, by small groups and individuals who live and operate among civilians—the very people whom we are trying to assist and who would be most at risk from an aerial offensive. Indeed, many of those fighting are civilians who have taken up arms.
Even if the use of air power against the warring factions seemed justified, targets would be very hard to identify, both because of the mountainous heavily wooded terrain and because much of the fighting is done with small, highly mobile weapons such as rifles and machine guns, mortars, hand-held rocket launchers and air-defence weapons. Air strikes against such targets would be likely to add to the casualties without stopping the fighting. And, of course, it would put an immediate end to the humanitarian activities of the Red Cross and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. They could not continue to operate convoys under such conditions, nor could our troops continue to provide protection for them. We would no longer be regarded as impartial.

Sir Russell Johnston: Is the Minister saying that the heavy artillery tanks and guns which ring Sarajevo, for example, cannot be targeted?

Mr. Hamilton: I am saying that they can very easily be moved at night and put into areas where there are schools, convents and so on. If one tried to take them out from the air, one would cause enormous civilian casualties. I think that we have learnt that lesson from previous conflicts.
But of course we cannot stand by and watch the appalling suffering which is already manifest in Bosnia and threatens to engulf the republic as winter approaches. Britain is playing a leading role in international efforts to bring relief to the civilian populations. We have given our full support to the extension of the mandate of the UN protection force—UNPROFOR—in the former Yugoslavia so that the force can provide protective support for humanitarian convoys throughout Bosnia. As the House knows, a British battalion group has been deployed for that purpose. Together with battalions from France, Canada and Spain, and support units from the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, the United States of America and Portugal. it will form part of a new Bosnia command under Major General Philippe Morillon. Their task will be, as we have described earlier, to escort relief convoys, on the basis of negotiated passage, to where they are needed. I am glad to have this opportunity to inform the House about progress with the deployment.
I should like to take up the point made by the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East about the delay. The reason was that it took time to get the ships to take out the Warrior armoured personnel carriers and it took time for reconnaissances to be made of the area before the troops arrived there.
The last of the battalion group arrived in theatre today and will shortly be operational. The deployment has been a phased one involving 10 ships, including Royal Fleet Auxiliaries and merchant shipping, transporting vehicles and equipment, and 55 flights transporting personnel. That has been a substantial and complex undertaking which has been achieved smoothly and promptly with the professionalism that we rightly expect from the armed forces. We have been most grateful to the United States Government for their assistance in this process through the provision of the entire airlift for our troops.
The total number of British personnel being deployed is about 2,400 initially, including headquarters troops. The reconnaissance confirmed our earlier planning figure of 1,800 personnel for the battalion group, but there will still be a short term need for some 400 extra men and women, mainly Royal Engineers, to provide support services in the initial stages of the deployment, such as accommodation and sanitation, electricity and water, reflecting the physical damage which has been sustained by so much of the fabric of Bosnia during the past months of conflict.
Following further examination of the medical support for the battalion, we have decided to provide a helicopter casualty evacuation capability in theatre, and have deployed four Royal Navy Sea King aircraft for this purpose. They will operate initially from Royal Fleet Auxiliary Argus off Split, transferring to a base ashore when conditions permit. The provision of that capability involves 100 personnel, excluding the Argus crew. The helicopters will he used for casualty evacuation when that is judged to be preferable to evacuation by road.
The United Kingdom contingent will be operating in central and North-East Bosnia, with its headquarters at Vitez and logistic bases at Split, Tomislavgrad and Gorni Vakuf. That represents a change from the UN's earlier plan for our battalion, when it was envisaged that aid might be escorted into North-East Bosnia from Serbia in the east. The reconnaissance showed that that would involve the need to cross too many front lines. It was decided that the delivery of aid would need to go with the ethnic grain to the greatest possible extent, not against it. The French and Canadian battalions reached similar conclusions in their own reconnaissances.
We shall be contributing about 65 personnel to the two-star headquarters and about 180 to the national one-star headquarters in Split. Both are providing an essential contribution to the overall UN operation.
The battalion is well equipped for its role, with personal weapons carried by individual service men, and the Warrior and Scimitar armoured vehicles with their 30 mm Rarden cannon. Ninety-six such vehicles have been deployed. The battalion has its integral mortars and anti-tank weapons readily available should the need arise. Our assessment is that those equipments will be sufficient to meet the battalion's needs. And our troops will have the right to defend themselves as well as the means to do so. I can confirm that they will be operating under what are effectively British rules of engagement. I hope that that answers the point that was raised by the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East. If anyone were in any doubt as to the effectiveness of those rules, I would draw his attention to an incident which occurred on Saturday 7 November, when a British reconnaissance party travelling in four Land Rovers from Vitez towards Tuzla returned fire when it came under small-arms and, possibly, mortar fire from unidentified assailants.
But we must also remember that the battalion's task is not a projection of force. This is a humanitarian mission and it is no part of the plan for the force to fight its way through opposition in order to deliver its aid. There will be no tanks, artillery or combat air support. That would profoundly alter the essence of the operation. Our troops are there to help bring relief to the suffering, not to add to the fighting. Their rules of engagement allow them to fire in self-defence. Retaliation is expressly forbidden.

Mr. Menzies Campbell: In the event that British troops find themselves in circumstances in which, for their own protection, it is the view of the senior commander that air strikes are necessary, will they be available to him to call down?

Mr. Hamilton: No, they will not. I had hoped to make that clear. That sort of asset will not be available. If the troops find themselves under heavy attack they must use their weapons of self-defence to fight their way out. They must retreat from their positions, or drive through using their self-protection weapons. If they find themselves in this position, that will mean that their negotiated passage has failed—the parties to some agreement have reneged on that agreement. It will mean in effect that the negotiated agreements have come apart. If the troops cannot get an agreement from the warring factions, they will not start out in the first place.
Though the battalion's relief operation is only now about to begin in earnest, with the arrival of the main contingent of the Cheshires, the Royal Irish and the


Lancers and their armoured vehicles, the advance parties of the British contingent have been active in preparing for the task, reconnoitring and preparing routes, establishing bases and getting round the table with local people to ensure that, so far as possible, our contingent gains the co-operation, understanding and respect of all the parties. They have also made a start on the humanitarian task. Over the weekend of 31 October to 1 November they escorted a UNHCR convoy carrying 86 pallets of relief supplies from Split to Vitez, in the aftermath of the fall to the Serbs of the town of Jajce, and the consequent flow of tens of thousands of refugees towards Travnik.
RAF participation in the relief flights to Sarajevo resumed on 10 October, in the light of assurances by the parties about the safety of humanitarian flights. Since the start of the operation in July, the RAF Hercules have flown 205 missions to Sarajevo and have delivered 2,812·5 tonnes of aid. An RN ship is taking part in the NATO and WEU naval monitoring operations in the Adriatic, which are monitoring compliance with the arms embargo against the whole of the former Yugoslavia and the trade sanctions against Serbia and Montenegro. We are also taking part in the operation by the NATO airborne early warning force to support the naval monitoring forces and to monitor compliance with the no-fly zone in Bosnia imposed in Security Council resolution 781.
As well as providing a battalion group, Britain is contributing to the humanitarian effort in many other forms. Our financial contribution is substantial: over £70 million so far, some £41 million of which has been channelled through the European Community and the remainder through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other international and British relief agencies. All our assistance is carried out in co-operation with international agencies working throughout the area—in particular UNHCR, which is co-ordinating the international community's response to the crisis. Our immediate priority is to provide food and shelter for refugees over this winter. The items for which our funds have been used include 43 trucks and support vehicles and staff operating as part of the UNHCR road delivery operation, running two or three convoys a week to Sarajevo and other areas; £2·6 million worth of medical supplies provided to the World Health Organisation and UNHCR; the provision of specialist personnel, such as medical advisers, logisticians to help plan and operate road convoys and manage the airlift, road engineers and radio operators, and mining and power teams. Our funds have also provided £3 million for the restoration of nine centres to provide winter shelter for up to 20,000 people in the Vitez-Travnik-Zenica area, where the number of refugees has increased following recent fighting.
We are also playing an active part, as president of the EC, in creating a European Community task force for the former Yugoslavia, and have provided and paid for the head of the task force and three other key staff.

Mr. Michael Meacher: What action are the Government taking to ensure that the almost 2 million refugees who are being driven out of their homes by massacres and ethnic cleansing and who are still in parts of former Yugoslavia will be able to return home? Have the Government finally abandoned their idea of safe havens? There are none inside Bosnia-Herzegovina. If so, what

alternative plans do the Government have to ensure that at least most of those people can eventually return home, bearing in mind that the Government are unwilling to enforce any of their humanitarian efforts against Serbian military attack?

Mr. Hamilton: That is a matter of great concern to the United Nations, and it has been discussed in Geneva. The United Nations has always taken the view that it is much better to try to provide a safe haven in the areas from which people originally come than to remove them from the country. Some areas of Bosnia are certainly much safer than others. Our troops will try to remove people from the areas where their lives are most threatened to areas which are relatively safer. The United Nations has always taken this view so that people can return whence they came when the fighting is, as we hope, finally over.

Mr. Meacher: The Minister's answer is manifestly unsatisfactory. I recently spent a week in Yugoslavia. The only area that is "safe" for the 43 per cent. of the population who are Muslims—they form the largest group —is the central corridor, whose size is rapidly being diminished with every day's fighting—as witness the significant recent fall of Jajce. The only other safe part is the tiny pocket of north-west Bosnia known as Bihac.
The Minister must get himself better briefed, because what he is saying does not relate to what is happening on the ground.

Mr. Hamilton: If the hon. Gentleman is trying to persuade the House that there is some simple solution to finding safe havens for 2 million refugees, he is misleading the House. This is an intractable problem, but everything possible will be done to try to help these people reach areas safer than the ones from which they are fleeing. I do not pretend that there is a straightforward solution; nor should the hon. Gentleman.
Finally, though the Government continue to believe that the solution to the refugee problem does not lie in the dispersal of refugees across Europe, we have made clear our commitment to take into this country a share of the highest priority cases. We have already responded to a request of this nature from the International Committee of the Red Cross.
These are the concrete actions that the British Government are taking to help the people of Bosnia, both in the immediate future and for the longer term. My hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and I welcome the opportunity to restate our policy to the House tonight.

Mr. Allan Rogers: I am sure that all hon. Members have been appalled by some of the answers given by the Minister of State tonight. I should like to deal with some of the questions to which he seemed unable to provide the answers.
The main purpose of any action that we take is to bring the fighting to an end and to get food to the civilian population, both in their homes and in the refugee camps and concentration camps. Some of the Minister's answers leave much to be desired.
The Minister has not dealt with the issue of our acceptance, or non-acceptance, of refugees and the Government seem to be confused about their policy on refugees. That was highlighted recently by the tragic case


mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), of the eight-month-old baby who desperately requires emergency surgery, in which the Foreign Office and the Home Office seem to have their lines crossed. Surely we can ask Ministers to consider urgently the possibility of establishing some form of hotline to enable people who are most in need of urgent medical treatment to receive it.
The Minister was asked whether a decision had been made about the refugees who are waiting in buses to come to this country. He gave the shameful answer that six have been allowed in. He tried to redress that shameful statement by saying that we must accept that there are 40,000 Yugoslays in this country already. They have probably been here since the last war.

Mr. Archie Hamilton: I meant that 40,000 refugees had been brought in to the United Kingdom since the conflict began.

Mr. Rogers: I am prepared to be corrected on that, but the Minister should have made it more clear. Whether we accept large numbers or not, we are adopting a shameful role. It is all right for the Minister to argue that it is better to keep people as close to their homes as possible, both partially to negate the aim of ethnic cleansing and to allow for a return when conditions allow. However, that argument was based on the assumption—highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher)—that the refugees will return to their homes fairly quickly. The likelihood of a quick return is rapidly fading and we must tackle the problem in that context and not the one in which it was originally set.

Sir John Wheeler: Does the hon. Gentleman recall that, on the two most successful occasions on which large numbers from Mozambique camped in Malawi and when people from Afghanistan camped in northern Pakistan, the refugees remained in those camps for many years with international and medical support but returned to their homelands with the conclusion of the internal conflicts? Does not the hon. Gentleman consider that that is the most successful way to deal with large numbers of refugees and that that might prove to be the best way to deal with them on this occasion?

Mr. Rogers: The cases that the hon. Gentleman illustrated were completely different from the situation in Yugoslavia. He was talking about two simple political conflicts: once the political situation was resolved, people were able to return. We are talking about an area where ethnic divisions run deep and have been exacerbated during the past few months. No one in his right mind can think that all the refugees—there are about 700,000 in Croatia—are likely to return to Bosnia in the medium term at least. We ought to agree that we cannot allow those people—they are mainly women and children—to live for ever in a limbo or never-never land of camp existence. It is shameful for a civilised country to turn its back on such a problem. Shame on the Government for not dealing with it properly.
If it were felt that we could not accept large numbers of refugees, surely we should increase financial help for countries that are prepared to shoulder their burdens.

Mr. Winnick: Opposition Members at least agree with my hon. Friend. Does he accept that the announcement

regarding those 180 refugees was totally unsatisfactory? The Minister is not connected with the Home Office, and he was must reluctant to answer questions on the issues. Should not the Home Secretary come to the House on Tuesday to explain why his Department, and presumably he himself, have taken such a decision? There is mounting concern. Although the war cannot be helped, it does not alter the fact that a relatively small group of people have been caught in a diplomatic battle about whether Austria or Britain will accept them. Many of them are children and are very young and they are living in buses in an isolated place. Surely the least we could do is accept them, instead of which apparently only eight are to be allowed into this country.

Mr. Rogers: I understood that it was only six. I agree, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will press that matter with the Home Secretary.

Mr. Madden: Before my hon. Friend leaves that subject, can he cast any light on why the Foreign Office should abdicate its responsibility on this occasion? In other countries where visa arrangements are in force, entry clearance officers at British overseas posts consider visa applications. Why on earth did not the British post in Vienna decide to issue visit visas to that wretched group of people, who are seeking only to visit the United Kingdom? They are not seeking political asylum or refuge, but merely a six-month stay.

Mr. Rogers: I agree. Perhaps, after the debate, the Minister will be shamed into dealing with that problem urgently tomorrow.
One of the most crucial and agonising decisions to be taken at United Nations, European and local levels is whether we should deploy more military force in the former Yugoslavia. When we contemplate the increase in suffering for the civilian population during the next few months, the decision becomes more acute. As my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) said on 25 September:
We support the deployment of British troops under UN auspices."—[Official Report, 25 September 1992; Vol. 212. c. 132.]
However, we have consistently argued about the precise role of the British troops in Bosnia, and the rules of engagement under which they will operate, as was highlighted by the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) and my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark), the Opposition defence spokesman, in the debate on 25 September.
That role has not been clearly explained to the House, although I was encouraged by the remarks of the Minister of State for the Armed Forces—the first time that I have been encouraged in four years of shadowing him in the defence team—to the Select Committee on Defence, when he said:
If ever we are going to commit our young servicemen into these situations we must be sure that they have not only the necessary equipment to defend themselves but also allow them to use that equipment.
I am disappointed in the Minister's reply to the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East, who asked whether commanders could call up air strikes. He said, "No, they couldn't." The other part of his answer was more significant: he said, "We don't have the capability "

Mr. Archie Hamilton: No.

Mr. Rogers: If the Minister looks at the record, he will see that he said, "They did not have them available anyhow". I presume that he meant that the commanders do not have the capability.

Mr. Hamilton: I have to put the record straight, as I have heard enough rubbish from the hon. Gentleman so far. I said that they would not have that capability in theatre, not that they would not have it at all. I want to make it clear that the capability to launch air strikes will not be available to our troops in Bosnia.

Mr. Rogers: I am used to the right hon. Gentleman's personal insults. Other hon. Members will recall that three years ago I accused him, during defence debates, of being part of the conspiracy to export arms to Iraq. I was told that I was making poisonous accusations—not by the Minister, but by Mr. Alan Clark. I was told that I was talking complete nonsense. I am probably one of the few Members of Parliament who can say tonight, with absolute certainty, "I told you so." Even the right hon. Gentleman's insults will not prevent me from speaking the truth.
To return to the issue of troops in Yugoslavia, British troops will be exposed and if the capability is not in the theatre, is it not about time the Minister of State for the Armed Forces put it there?

Mr. Hamilton: indicated dissent.

Mr. Rogers: If the Minister is prepared to say that if young British service men come under attack from overwhelming forces he will allow Harriers and Tornados to sit there unused, that will not go down well outside the House. I accept that we do not want to use excessive force; but surely in such a critical situation it should be considered, at least as an option. The Minister shuts his mind to the problem, as he so often does.

Mr. Menzies Campbell: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the mere fact that the capability was available and could be called on could be a considerable deterrent?

Mr. Rogers: Indeed; I am glad that the hon. and learned Gentleman points that out. For years, the Government have said that deterrence is the basis of their military philosophy, but now deterrence goes out of the window. Perhaps that is because they are under so much pressure that they cannot think straight.
If we are to increase military intervention in the area, it must be done on the basis that the only way to obtain peace is to separate the warring factions by deploying a superior ground force or using air power to take out Serbian heavy weapons, thus creating a more level playing field, as the Bosnians have requested.
The decision on whether those options are feasible could be left to the generals—as a politician, I should hate to interfere in such a decision—but there seems to be an enormous difference even between the generals. Some say that two or three divisions, amounting to 30,000 to 40,000 men, combined with maritime air cover, would be needed and others say that some 500,000 or even more men would be necessary to maintain peace. The opinion on the required force levels seems to depend on whether one supports intervention.
We should be under no illusion because, as soon as either of those enhanced force options is used, the humanitarian assistance presently deployed will go out of

the window. I agree with that part of the Minister's speech. If it reaches the point where we are involved in a war, it could have the opposite effect of what we are trying to do in other respects. No one could believe that the Serbs would sit back and accept that form of intervention. Whatever intervention is used, whether air strikes or ground forces, the present suffering among the civilian population will be as nothing compared to the direct and indirect suffering that will result from aggressive military intervention.
Even assuming that such intervention is feasible and effective, what happens next? Are we prepared to maintain a standing army in the area indefinitely? As soon as we pull it out, we all know that the fighting will start again.
For some people, military intervention may be morally desirable at this stage, but I doubt whether it is a solution to the complex problems, which, as the Minister rightly said, can only be resolved politically.

Mr. Mike O'Brien: Will my hon. Friend comment on the Minister's reference to safe havens, which seems to be his only practical suggestion to deal with the refugee problem? Is not the basis of any idea of safe havens that they be safe? They cannot be safe in Bosnia if they are protected only by Bosnians who are not well armed, so if safe havens are to be a policy, should not that policy be safeguarded by United Nations troops?

Mr. Rogers: I must confess that I cannot give an expert opinion on the safe havens issue, which was dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West. I understand from my hon. Friend that the geographical location of safe havens will be extremely difficult in Bosnia and they may not be available as an option to save lives.
Apart from using large-scale military force, only one other practical measure is available to us—sanctions. That is why I welcome, in the Government amendment, the reference to sanctions and the Minister's statement that the Government will at last tighten up on them. They are supposed to have been in place for months and the Minister has virtually acknowledged that they have not been maintained.
In the past few weeks, I have heard people say that sanctions do not work. Normally, they say that as a preface to arguing for armed intervention. They are absolutely right—sanctions do not work if they are not enforced. We are seeing a flagrant breach of sanctions that were first agreed by the European Community and then reinforced by resolution 713 and subsequent resolutions of the UN Security Council. The bans on trade and the supply of weapons have been continually ignored. Mandatory sanctions have not been taken seriously and there is ample evidence that convoys of barges are using the Danube to take strategic materials into Serbia, as well as using land routes from the south and east.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Western Isles (Mr. Macdonald) said in an intervention, today's Financial Times contains an article by Laura Sibler on how sanctions are being busted and strategic materials are getting through to Serbia. It is no good thinking that we are not involved in or responsible for that matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) raised that matter with the Department of Trade and Industry and was told that import-export trade statistics for the Yugoslav republics were not even available. I understood that we were at least monitoring trade, even if we were doing


nothing to stop it. I hope that, in a couple of years' time, the ex-Prime Minister and ex-Defence Ministers will not say, "It is nothing to do with me, guvnor. Don't blame me, because I didn't know anything about it. Nobody told me" —just as they are now saying about the arms deals with Iraq.
We have held the European Community presidency for the past six months and have been in a unique position to insist that sanctions be enforced and properly monitored. But, yet again, the Government have failed lamentably. If sanctions are not given a chance to work, the argument against military intervention is substantially weakened. The crux of the matter is that if we allow those war profiteers to make their pound of flesh out of innocent civilians now, pretty soon they will make a pound of flesh out of British troops, too. We want the mandatory sanctions against Serbia to be enforced rigorously by a more effective monitoring of the River Danube and other land access routes into Serbia.
However difficult it may be to enforce sanctions, it will be much easier than attempting to apply a military solution. Even a ring of steel would be a much cheaper option than the cost of placing an army in Bosnia, not only financially but in the saving of human life and misery.
The heart of the matter is the intended acquisition of land by force, the physical and ethnic cleansing of areas ahead of a peace settlement. The acquisition of land of recognised neighbouring sovereign states is against the prime underlying ethics of civilised relationships and international law. That is why we must continually make it clear that boundaries between states or new states created by ethnic cleansing will not be internationally recognised. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) said last August, a state based on such an obscene and uncivilised policy should be treated as an outlawed state and should be given no legitimacy in the world community.

Mr. Patrick Cormack: Most hon. Members would echo the concluding words of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers), although for reasons that I shall seek to explain some other parts of his speech were less easy to agree with. The hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) who opened the debate performed a signal service for the House with an admirable speech. He and his colleagues are to be congratulated on choosing this horrific subject for their Supply day debate.
When we turn our attention, as we do all too rarely, to the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, I feel an overwhelming sadness. All hon. Members have certain events seared into their memories. Some of my formative searing experiences were as a small boy seeing the Pathé news reels of Belsen and as a sixth former seeing the dreadful carnage in Budapest in 1956 and feeling at the time that everything possible must be done to ensure that such events never recur to deface the European continent. In the former Yugoslavia we are seeing a re-run of events as horrific as both of those.
No one could have been unmoved on reading the terrible accounts relayed by extraordinarily brave journalists from the former Yugoslavia. It is fitting for the House to pay tribute to those journalists, many of whom have lost their lives in bringing home to us what has been

going on. The free world's response has been inadequate. I have felt that from the time before the Serbian forces started to shell Dubrovnik about a year ago. I felt then, and I feel now, that firm and concerted action might well have prevented the events in Bosnia. Some of us said that those events could and would take place but certain actions were ruled out.
The hon. Member for Rhondda spoke appositely about deterrence. A country with a weapon or a force that is viewed as a deterrent does not announce to the world that it will never use it. That was my party's consistent criticism of Labour's position on the nuclear deterrent. It was not that we were warmongers or that we viewed with anything other then abhorrence the possibility of using it, but we did not rule that out. Unfortunately, when Milosevic and his warlords in and outside Serbia got to work, the west—the free world, including the European Community—ruled out force.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing) speaks with great knowledge and authority about Serbia, but I would say to him that if we had been prepared to bomb munition factories and take some tough, surgical action against Serbia about a year ago and had mounted a naval blockade of Dubrovnik, we might have avoided the subsequent carnage. I make no apology for saying that again.
We cannot undo what has been done, but surely we can learn some lessons, one of which is to eschew ambivalence. It is incomprehensible for any member of the Government to speak as if there can be neutrality between a fire brigade and a fire or between an aggressor and those who are being victimised. I do not suggest that no atrocities have been committed by Croatians or Bosnians because there is evidence of some, but the overwhelming evidence is that the massacres, the carnage and the destruction of' a nation's heritage in Croatia and Bosnia have been the work of the Serbs.
Last week I attended a concert in the Royal Festival hall in aid of Dubrovnik. More than 3,000 people came to show their dismay at the destruction of one of Europe's prime cultural sites. Who destroyed it? It was not the Croatians. Serbia has persistently been the aggressor. Again I make no apology for referring to the video that was sent to us about eight weeks ago. It came from a rather improbable source which I think was the Sunday Sport. That video made the most appalling viewing. It showed trays of young men's genitals, and a woman being disembowelled to find out whether she was pregnant with a boy or girl. It is horrible to speak about such things, but one must do so to bring home the enormity of such happenings.
We cannot and should not for a moment seek to suggest that there is any equality of culpability between the Serbs and the rest because there is not. I am sure that many people in Serbia are as appalled and disgusted as hon. Members at the events there. Many of them would like to replace their present regime with one approximating to the system that we enjoy. However, the Serbian regime is culpable. That is why I find it so difficult to understand why we are unable to guarantee an air exclusion zone.
The hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East asked some extremely pertinent questions. While I have great regard and affection for my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces who responded, I


do not think that his response was adequate. It was a case of ruling something out, and we should not do that. The UN peacekeeping force includes our young men.

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Douglas Hogg): My hon. Friend may be confusing two different propositions. The proposition advanced by the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) dealt with the deployment of aircraft in support of the United Kingdom troops in Bosnia. My hon. Friend speaks about an air exclusion zone, which is a quite different proposition. I shall refer to it in my winding-up speech.

Mr. Cormack: I was happy to give way but my right hon. and learned Friend intervened a little too early. The point made several times in the debate is that British troops are on the ground in Bosnia as part of the UN force. A few weeks ago we were told that only 1,800 would be required, but that estimate has been increased by almost 1,000 to 2,658 according to the latest figures. If that force is subjected to unprovoked air aggression, it must be defended from the air and not left to defend itself from the ground.

Mr. Hogg: I think that that is a slightly different issue and I am sorry that there is confusion. Perhaps I am responsible for it. A breach of the United Nations resolution on a no-fly zone would raise different questions. I do not think that the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East raised that matter, but I shall deal with it in my winding-up speech. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces was entirely right in what he said about United Kingdom forces and prospective air power. There is a different answer if the Serbs use air power in breach of the United Nations Security Council resolution.

Mr. Cormack: If there is a different answer to be given, I am mightily relieved. What I believe to be clear, and what seemed clear in what the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East said, is that it is crucial that our forces are given every necessary protection. If my right hon. and learned Friend is saying that that is the case, I thank him for it, and I am delighted by it.

Mr. Menzies Campbell: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his polite observations about me. I made two points about air power. First, as the United Nations has declared an air exclusion zone but has not yet willed the means to enforce it, I asked whether it makes any sense to have a zone that one is not willing to enforce. Secondly, I asked whether, if the lives of those in the British force were at risk, the senior commander would have the right to call down air forces to protect it.

Mr. Cormack: I concur with the hon. and learned Gentleman's two points. It seems that we now have at least a partial assurance on one of them from my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister. As he said, he will develop that point when he winds up, and I am sure that we shall all be listening with great interest to what he has to say.

Mr. Hogg: I should rather say it later.

Mr. Cormack: I should prefer that as well, having already given way three times in quick succession. The

House would be at one in expecting that the United Nations, having willed the troops on the ground, would will the means to defend them. I think also that the House would be at one in expecting any British commander to have flexible options, and not be leading his troops with one arm tied behind his back.

Mr. Macdonald: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Cormack: I shall give way once more, but interventions make for long speeches.

Mr. Macdonald: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because this is an important point. I understand that the Government are now saying that, whereas British forces on the ground would not be able to call in air support to defend themselves from attack on the ground, they would be able to call in air support to protect themselves from attack from the air, such attack being in breach of the United Nations exclusion zone. One wonders whether that principle could be extended to the civilian populations on the ground to protect them from attack from the air.

Mr. Cormack: The hon. Gentleman moves us on, and I am glad to be moved on. I hope that we shall have a clear, definitive answer, deployed with all the forensic skills for which my right hon. and learned Friend is renowned, when he winds up. I agree with the hon. Gentleman and I would go on to say that there is still an overwhelming case for using strategic strikes against the aggressor, in the air or in Serbia. We should not rule that out.
I return to the deterrent point. We should not tell any potential enemies that we shall rule out anything. We should keep them guessing. We should continue to apply sanctions and try to make them as effective as possible as quickly as possible. We should try to deal with the Danube problem—a very real problem. After all, we did not rule out that option—indeed, we deployed it fairly quickly—when another sovereign state was overwhelmed in July 1990. Whether we like it or not, Bosnia was recognised as a sovereign state. There are those in the House—I pay proper tribute to them—who did not like that fact. Nevertheless, it has been so recognised, since the beginning of this year, by all the countries of the European Community and many beyond.
Therefore, we have an obligation to do something to ensure that this new nation, which we have recognised, is not completely dismembered. It is already pretty close to being dismembered. The figures are horrendous—2 million refugees, and people who are not given to exaggeration talk of perhaps 400,000 perishing in the ice and snow this year. If that happens, as it so easily could, it will be a damning indictment of us all.
My right hon. and learned Friend should not close his eyes, nationally, as part of the European Community or as part of the United Nations. I am not talking about massive involvement. I have never done so, and nor have people like the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston), who is nodding now. I am talking about the sort of action that Lord Owen was advocating until the very day that he became the United Nations mediator. I am talking about the sort of action advocated by Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven, to whom my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces was such an assiduous Parliamentary Private Secretary for so long.
I urge my right hon. and learned Friend not to rule out that option entirely. What is happening in Bosnia is utterly


shameful. Both the motion tabled by the Liberal Democrats and the Government amendment refer to Kosovo and Macedonia. We all know that terrible things are happening in Kosovo, as they are in Macedonia, although what is happening in Kosovo has been more widely reported. People are being excluded from their schools and colleges, being harried from their homes and being ill treated. The cauldron is boiling and it might boil over. If it did, we could find ourselves facing a full-scale Balkan war, a war that could involve Albania, Bulgaria and two NATO countries—Greece and Turkey—on opposite sides.
We must not rule out any option because, above all, that war is what we must deter. We cannot bring back the tens of thousands who have already been slaughtered or massacred. We cannot restore the tens of thousands maimed. We cannot, overnight, put together the families that have been shattered and dispersed. But we can do something to deter the warlords and others from plunging Macedonia and Kosovo into similar hardship and strife.

Mr. Rogers: The hon. Gentleman said earlier that we should anticipate these conflicts and perhaps, if we had done so, they might not have escalated as they have in Bosnia. As I understand it, there are eight missions in Bosnia, including those from Norway and the United States. Would it not be appropriate—and perhaps the Minister can deal with this point—to put more missions and more monitoring in the area and perhaps to anticipate the problems that the hon. Gentleman is so graphically describing?

Mr. Cormack: That might well be the case. Firmness and resolution in dealing with the acute problem before us now will be the best deterrent to those who are tempted to tread this appalling path to devastation and destruction.
It is not just that. Those people, many of whom thought before the war broke out that they had been liberated from communism and totalitarianism, looked to the free world. They aspired to what they thought were the values that had been withheld from them. The problem is not just there. As we speak, all over the former Soviet Union there are cauldrons simmering—for example, terrible things are happening in Georgia, although we do not see them nightly on our television screens.
The firmness, resolve and effectiveness with which the European Community and the free world in general deal with the problem of the former Yugoslavia will have a significant effect on what does or does not happen elsewhere. The world is a far more dangerous place than it was before the wall and the iron curtain came down. I rejoice that they are down and that the cold war is ended.
But the new situation calls for great statesmanship, vision and resolution. Although I pay tribute to what Ministers have sought to do, we have not been effective enough and there is no point in pretending that we have. I hope that a stiffening of resolve will emerge from this debate.
It is also important to consider the position of the British infantry. I make no apology for raising this matter, which I touched upon in September. We are extremely fortunate in the way in which we are served by our armed forces. Their versatility, professionalism and cool courage is an example to us all, yet they are thin on the ground. Since "Options for Change" was published, many of us, some with a territorial interest—I do not apologise for my

interest in the Staffordshire Regiment—have said time and again that we are stretching the infantry too far. That fear has been backed up by military men of immense experience and prestige, as was illustrated by the recent letter to The Times from Field Marshal Lord Bramall.
In September we were told that the number of men to be sent to Yugoslavia would be limited to 1,800; 2,658 troops are now there. I do not object to that. It might be necessary to increase that number to 3,000 and I would not object to that either. But we have Northern Ireland, and events in this capital city at the weekend have reminded us that that problem will not go away. There are other trouble spots in the world.
We will not lightly be forgiven if we deprive ourselves of the means of defence, but the infantry is being stretched to a dangerous degree. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Defence will review this issue. He has already said that he will if circumstances change and, through my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, I should like to tell him that those circumstances have changed, are changing, and will continue to do so. I make no apology for urging, once more, that reconsideration.
Apart from the expressions of total revulsion and absolute sympathy, I hope that what comes out of this debate will be a determination to do everything that we can to bring this conflict to a close. I agree with the hon. Member for Rhondda that we cannot do that by massive intervention on the ground, and I have not advocated and will not advocate that, but we can do it by a demonstration of resolve and by a refusal to forgo weapons that we have every right to consider using. I hope that when my right hon. and learned Friend replies to the debate he will recognise that.

Ms. Kate Hoey: I agree with practically everything that the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) said. At the risk of upsetting some of my colleagues, I congratulate the Liberal Democrats on using this opportunity to discuss this serious topic.
Terrible events are taking place in the heart of Europe, and I was appalled not just at the banality of the Government's amendment, but by the speech of the Minister of State for the Armed Forces. There was a note of complacency in it and an almost total acceptance not just of what has happened but of what is likely to happen in the coming months in Yugoslavia. We as politicians, not just of the House, but of the European Community and the world, must take collective blame for what has happened. We must accept that blame because we have stood by, as a nation, and watched nothing less than the extinction of another nation and its cultural identity, the nation of Bosnia.
More than one third of a million civilians are trapped in Sarajevo alone, without food, electricity or running water. We all know that they are dying daily, and we must recognise that, apart from fine words, fine intentions and some belated military help with humanitarian aid, they are dying because this country and the rest of the EC have refused to intervene. I do not believe that we have used our position as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council to support the initiatives aimed a t confronting Serbian militarism.
Consider the publicity that was devoted to the London peace conference in August and what was supposed to come out of it. At that conference the Prime Minister named Serbia as the chief instigator of atrocities and territorial aggression in the region. He claimed success in reaching specific agreements that guaranteed the integrity and security of Bosnia and its people. What has happened to those agreements? We were told that the sieges of towns and cities would be soon lifted, but that has not happened. We were told that there would be international supervision of the use of heavy weapons, but that has not happened. We were also told that there would be a ban on military flights, but no air exclusion zone has been observed. The promise to enforce sanctions on the Danube has not been fulfilled.

Mr. Douglas Hogg: On the question of the air exclusion zone, we have no evidence of any combat mission having been flown since 12 October. We believe that, at the moment at least, the no-flight regime has been observed for combat missions.

Ms. Hoey: The Minister may say that, but that is not exactly what has happened. I believe that the air exclusion zone has not been monitored and has not been observed.
The agreement on the creation of an international criminal court has not been realised. I accept that some civilians have been released from detention camps, but just as some have been released, some have been imprisoned. We heard many fine words at that peace conference, but we have seen little action. In some ways Britain has even obstructed the UN in carrying out initiatives aimed at enforcing the agreements reached in London.
A lot of the blame must rest with the Foreign Office, which has continued to portray this conflict as a civil war and promoted the myth that all sides are equally to blame. I agree with the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South that anyone who has studied what has happened cannot fail to say that the blame must lie with the Serbians. There have been atrocities committed on all sides, but the systematic atrocities carried out by the Serbians must be recognised.
Civilians will get hurt in all wars, but all the evidence points to the fact that the Serbians have a deliberate and calculated policy of targeting civilians. Their policy is to kill them in sufficient numbers to make others run away. I do not believe that that is war; it is terrorism on a scale unprecedented in Europe since the Nazis.
It is equally clear that journalists have been targeted by the Serbians. I am sure that all hon. Members would want to pay tribute to the fine work done by television and newspaper journalists. Without their reports we would be unaware of some of the terrible atrocities that have occurred.
If we allow Bosnia-Herzegovina to be destroyed, I believe that all hope for the survival of democracy and decency in that part of the world will end. Britain has some responsibility and must take action; there is still much to be done. I may be out of line with some of my Front-Bench colleagues, but I believe that Britain should act to lift the UN arms embargo on Bosnia. I do not believe that it is right that Bosnians are dying because they have no weapons to defend themselves. They are literally being killed because they have no opportunity to get the weapons that they need to defend themselves. There is no

point in sending in the military to ensure that food aid gets through to the people of Sarajevo only for those people to be killed a few days later. We should get the United Nations to lift the arms embargo on Bosnia.
We should be pressing for selective air strikes against the artillery and other heavy weapons of the former Yugoslav army. I agree that we do not want a wholesale military presence in the area, but, as other hon. Members have said, if when we saw the pictures of what was happening in Dubrovnik selective action had been taken, that might have deterred the Serbians from doing what they then did in Sarajevo. If we do not learn a lesson from that, there will be an escalation in the conflict in that area. I am also worried about what is happening in Kosovo. If the Serbians knew that we were prepared to take action, it might deter them from going further.
The greatest priority is to save the citizens in Sarajevo. That is essential for the survival of Bosnia's physical and cultural identity. Last year, almost 30 per cent. of Bosnians married people from different religious groups. That is good evidence of the tolerance that has sustained Bosnia's character and identity for centuries. It must be protected from the nationalism and ethnic cleansing that threaten not only that region but the peace and security of Europe.
Will the Minister say how much more Serbian aggression the Government will allow before they are prepared to take action? I supported our actions in the Gulf war in support of Kuwait, so I cannot justify Britain doing nothing about what is happening in central Europe. I hope that the debate will bring to the forefront the need for action. We must not sit back and allow more people to die. If we do not take action, in a year's time the conflict will spread throughout Europe. We could stop that happening, but currently the Government are refusing to do so.
Will the Minister answer some of the questions asked by the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) which were not answered by the Minister of State for the Armed Forces? I hope that the debate will bring us a little nearer to the end of a conflict that we cannot allow to continue.

Mr. Terry Dicks: Although I agree with most of what has been said about the dreadful conflict in the former Yugoslavia, I want to concentrate my remarks on the refugees issue. I am concerned that we are thinking only about refugees in the former Yugoslavia and not taking the wider context into account. The problems in that area are repeated throughout the world, so it is wrong that the House should concentrate on the Yugoslav refugees.
What about the Sikhs in the Punjab, where there is also ethnic cleansing and the worst sort of brutality? To follow on the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack), there is also murder, rape and pillage in the Punjab. Other than when I have raised the matter through Adjournment debates, I cannot remember the issue being raised on the Floor of the House, and certainly not by either of the two main Opposition parties. I remind the House that all that is happening in a former Commonwealth country which has a direct relationship with us. It is not a country in Europe which, if I may put it this way, has no direct connection with Britain.
The worldwide problems are caused by civil wars. I understand that there are currently 44 conflicts throughout the world. The problems of refugees arise from the economic chaos that is rife the length and breadth of Africa. Many African countries are former Commonwealth countries, but no one is as concerned about them as about Yugoslavia.
Many people are moving around the world in search of safer and better lives, but that is not the reason for our refugee legislation. There are problems in Romania, Iran, Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Somalia, Zaire, Uganda and Sri Lanka—and of course, the whole of the Soviet Union is breaking up. Countries are worried about refugees. France is worried about Algeria and Spain about north Africa and the border that allows refugees directly to enter Spain. Portugal is worried about the refugee problem in Macau, where people can apply for a full European passport. Germany has a problem because 250,000 refugees arrived there last year and a further 500,000 are expected this year from eastern Europe, Turkey, Afghanistan, Africa and, now, the former Yugoslavia. The anger of Germans has nothing to do with Nazi thugs—everyone is opposed to them.

Sir Russell Johnston: Surely there is a difference between economic refugees, of which the hon. Gentleman rightly says there are many, and people who have been burnt out of their homes.

Mr. Dicks: I accept the hon. Gentleman's point, but as I said earlier, people are suffering those same conditions in the Punjab, yet there is apparently no concern in the House about that. The Government show no concern about it in their relationship with India. It has been happening since long before the events in the former Yugoslavia, but no one cares. People are concerned about the former Yugoslavia—it is the in thing. I have almost 10,000 Sikhs in my constituency who ask, "Why the concern? We know what is happening in Yugoslavia and we do not want it to continue, but where is the concern about what has happened to our relatives in our country?"
If the refugees going to Germany are granted asylum status, they can move wherever they wish around the EEC. They could come to Britain if they so wanted—and many of those seeking that status in Europe might want to do that. We must consider the position facing Britain before we think of taking hundreds, thousands or even millions of refugees.
It takes up to three years to determine a claim. Between 1984 and 1990, 2,700 people from India applied for asylum. None was granted it because apparently none qualified, but 47 per cent.—more than 1,200—were allowed to stay because it took so long to process their applications. That can only encourage people to apply for asylum and to make bogus applications.
There are already some 4,200 people from Somalia in this country of whom 665 are seeking asylum status. Those 4,200 people came here as visitors or students. I am sure that the House is aware of the fact that, whatever the circumstances, they will not be sent back. I find that rather surprising. There were 50,000 applications for asylum in Britain last year and there could be even more this year.
During the past two years 106 unaccompanied children arrived at Heathrow in my borough of Hillingdon, which

has had to find them accommodation and educate and feed them. So far, it has cost my local authority £1 million, but there has been no help from the Government.
On the specific matter of the former Yugoslavia, a parliamentary answer shows that in the year ending August 1992, 50,800 people from that area were given leave to enter Britain, mainly as visitors or students—but with the implicit understanding that they would not be sent back. A further 500 have applied for asylum. That makes nearly 52,000 refugees already from the former Yugoslavia who have nipped in rather quietly knowing that, whatever happens, they will not have to return.
I appeared on a television programme with a 19-year-old refugee who said, "I don't want to go back home. I get £30 a week and my accommodation paid for. I will not return, even if the situation changes." Who can blame him? He was allowed entry for a course that he has now given up, and he just wants to stay.
I hate to use the word "do-gooders" in this context, but one must question the actions of those who believe that it is a good idea to take empty coaches to a border and to return to Britain with refugees. I thought that a refugee was someone who sought refuge—and that the first place to do that was immediately outside the troubled area. However, some people are bussing refugees through two or three countries, which causes problems for others. One newspaper report states:
Dover, perhaps unusually, has never had a major refugee problem. But three weeks ago 250 people arrived in a convoy of coaches from Bosnia, brought by a voluntary group based in Leeds.
Two days before they arrived, the authorities were told that they were going to apply for political asylum, and that entitled them to the full range of benefits—housing, social security, health and legal aid. A council spokesman said:
It is all very laudable for these people to bring people in, but they haven't thought out who will foot the bill.
The Sikhs in my constituency might well say, "This seems to be the game to play now. We will charter a plane to India and bring out a few thousand Sikhs over a period of time." Another interested group might say, "The real issue is Somalia, so we will take a plane there and bring out some refugees." Another group could say, "We will take a few coaches to eastern Europe and bring refugees back to Dover."
If such people arrive at a port, existing law on asylum allows them entry. The individuals who bussed refugees in from Bosnia have been in touch with the Home Office, and it is sending extra staff to the ports to cope with the situation. Laudable though such actions by do-gooders and members of the chattering classes may be, they have not thought through the consequences if every group having an interest abroad starts to do the same.
With the exception of one child who is likely to be adopted by an eminent ITN reporter, refugees will not be sent to Surrey, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire or Hampshire. Instead, they will stay near their port of entry and move to inner-city areas that already have problems. Local authorities will have to cope and local residents—through direct taxes and the council tax—will have to pay the bill.
Most right hon. and hon. Members have problems with housing waiting lists in their constituencies. I certainly do. When refugees arrive, my constituents say, "Hang on, Mr. Dicks—we have been waiting for years for a transfer or for accommodation. We feel sorry for refugees, but they should be helped nearer their own countries and not be brought to Britain to occupy accommodation meant for


us." It may be wonderful to drop refugees off at Dover or Leeds and let someone else take responsibility for them, but all right hon. and hon. Members have an obligation to their constituents. They must always come first and last. I would not mind so much if there were any spare facilities.
As to the churches and vicars who encourage such action, how many of them are using their church halls to accommodate refugees, and how many archbishops have handed over their palaces for that purpose? I shall be surprised and delighted if one of them is accommodating a refugee family. I make this challenge to the Church—before it starts saying all those wonderful words, it should open its doors first and feed and clothe the refugees, and then it will not be denying a citizen of this country his or her right to housing.
We should seriously consider redrafting the 1951 United Nations convention on refugees, because it was never designed to cope with the present situation or with economic refugees from Vietnam and Africa. Neither was it meant to cope with thousands of refugees from the former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union. That convention was never meant to put pressure on the developed world. Its wording and the responsibilities that it imparts are out of date. I want the Government to persuade the United Nations to rewrite that convention, to control not just the arrival of refugees but their departure.
Those who, in their unworldly way, encourage refugees to come to this country should also be prohibited by legislation from encouraging people to seek refuge here after travelling through two or three other countries, when there may be safe refuge just outside their own borders. People must be told that they cannot continue to exercise their conscience and make themselves feel good when sitting by the fire at night—not taking anyone in themselves, but expecting everyone else to do so.
We should certainly provide help and support in the countries concerned and just outside their borders. The safe haven concept is best, and we must do all that we can to encourage it. If neighbouring countries want to take in thousands of refugees that is their business, not ours.
The people of Britain have had enough: they have done their share. They are saying, "Hang on—are we going to be a soft touch again?" Everyone else wants to shout about it; as I have said, the chattering classes want to do something. But the working-class chap in the street, who pays his taxes, wonders what the hell is going on in this country. It seems to him that every time there is a problem somewhere and people want to move from that area—for whatever reason—good old Britain is the place for them to go.
My young daughter, her husband and their three children must be pushed down the waiting list because of the stupid Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977, and the fact that having to cope with refugees means that newcomers are placed at the top of the list. Old-age pensioners in my constituency could do with a bigger pension, but have had to accept increases in line with inflation; meanwhile people come here from nowhere, and are literally given everything that they require to live a good life. I am not saying that there is not a reason for that, but let it not happen in this part of the world again.

Let us be realistic: we have done our share. We are not a soft touch. We are not the dustbin of the world, to which people should come when everything else has gone wrong.
If the Government and the House continue to take the same view, we are likely to see the same dreadful developments that have been seen in Germany. Thank God we have no Le Pen in this country now. Many people are saying that they are sick and tired of being taken for a ride, and, if we continue to allow refugees to enter this country—as I have said, they go to the tough working-class areas around the ports and in the inner cities —we shall experience the civil strife that has taken place in Germany, France and Italy. I do not want that, but the only way to stop it is to control what is happening, rather than saying, "Wonderful Britain must open all the doors and let everyone in."

Mr. David Trimble: I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) and his colleagues on arranging this evening's debate. I am sorry that more debates have not taken place on the issue.
As time is now short, I shall concentrate on the key points. According to the motion, the record of the European Community and the Foreign Office on Yugoslavia has consistently been
too little and too late".
That is putting it mildly. In my view, the actions of the Foreign Office and the Community in the earlier stages of the crisis contributed significantly to the outbreak of fighting, to its continuation and to the form that it took. People could see what would happen in Bosnia from the moment that trouble started in Knin and around Krajina: it was obvious and predictable. Rather than preventing it, however, we took action that, if anything, encouraged it.
We sec the same picture of people sitting back and waiting for the next conflict to erupt when we look at reports of pressure on Muslims in Sandzak, troubles in Kosovo and continuing problems throughout Macedonia. The tinder is there; but, rather than defusing the situation, we seem to be sitting back. I am particularly concerned about Macedonia, which is currently in limbo. We seem to have put it on ice, as it were, so that it can sit and wait until its neighbours are ready to carve it up.
Before war broke out in Bosnia, Milosevic clearly signalled his desire to do a deal with his neighbours to carve up Bosnia. Now he is signalling his desire to do the same with Macedonia. What will we do about that? At present, the Macedonian administration satisfied the normal criteria for recognition, and it is clear that Macedonia would be recognised but for the problems caused by the Greeks. The Greeks had some legitimate concerns, which have been met. What concerns us now is Greek ambition, together with Serb and, perhaps, Bulgarian ambition. We should seriously consider recognising Macedonia; if we are not prepared to do that, we should make it abundantly clear that we will not tolerate any forcible intervention by other parties in Macedonia. We should make our feelings very clear to the Greeks.
We have intervened in Bosnia rather belatedly, and I am concerned about the manner of our intervention. The present intervention strikes me as incoherent. United Nations troops could have been sent in in the normal way to supervise agreed ceasefire lines. At the other end of the


scale, we could have intervened to impose our will on the situation by compelling the combatants to move back to the lines that we considered appropriate. We are told, however, that that is not what is happening. It seems that we are intervening somewhere in the middle, but the position is not entirely clear. We are deceiving ourselves if we imagine that our current intervention is, or can be, limited to so-called humanitarian work.
Sieges are taking place everywhere. To supply food to besieged people is intervention on behalf of the besieged persons and will be perceived by the besiegers as the provision of military aid. In some circumstances, food is a weapon. Our intervention, therefore, is effectively on one side. We pretend to ourselves that we are not intervening. That is foolish and is likely to end in greater trouble.
We cannot, however, walk away from the problem. We cannot allow the war to continue, sit back and let the people fight it out among themselves. That might have been okay in 1912 or 1913, but it is not okay in a world where there is the United Nations, and it is not okay in a Europe where there are the various agreements about the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe. I suppose that in some way we are trying to vindicate the CSCE.
The debate has concentrated so far on the means of exerting pressure, whether it be diplomatic, economic or limited military involvement. I agree with what was said by the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) about not forswearing certain action and making sure that there is a credible military capability available to be used, if only to keep people guessing.
We have to think hard about our objective. I said earlier that the intervention was incoherent. It does not seem to me to have any clear objective in mind. We must start to think about what our objective is and then work back from that to see what are the appropriate means of achieving it. Having a clear objective in this case means having a view about the desired outcome. Through this whole debate, the British Government and the other European Governments seem to have been incredibly coy about the desired outcome. That must be spelt out. We must be clear about it, and then we can look at the ways and means.

Lady Olga Maitland: I welcome the fact that the debate is taking place. I welcome also the way in which it has been conducted—soberly and with considerable reflection. The debate has been distinguished by no rancour having been shown on either side of the House. That is important.
This is an emotional issue. I must declare right away that I support the Government amendment, but the motion reflects the tension and anger that we feel about the slaughter and atrocities in that region. It reflects our awareness of the impending horror of the forthcoming winter and the feeling of total revulsion about the continuation of ethnic cleansing.
At times, however, the House tries to blame the wrong party. It is easy to blame the Government, because they are there. Nevertheless, we bear in mind that the Government have agonised long and hard about how to perform our role in the Balkans. We are very much aware of the Prime Minister's anguish. He was anxious to make his contribution—hence the London peace conference. He made a firm stand by condemning Serbia for the atrocities.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was keen that Lord Carrington should play a role in the European Community peace initiative. He, of course, was followed by Lord Owen. The British Government were anxious to ensure that we provided an honourable deployment of troops.
It is remarkable that this country has contributed 2.600 troops to the area, out of a total force of 6,000. That is a larger share, in proportion to our responsibilities, than has been provided by any other country. That ought to be recognised when anybody suggests that the Government are taking no action, are flaccid and are unwilling to act.
I share everybody's concern about the refugee problem. We must remember that 40,000 refugees have already made their way to this country. I know that passions are aroused over refugees. I have declared in the House on a previous occasion that my mother is Serbian. I remember that after the last war Serbian refugees came to this country, fleeing from oppression and totalitarianism in communist Yugoslavia. So I know how important it is to ensure that we give refugees the right welcome.
I take issue with the Government on one matter: although it is quite honourable and correct to say that we must try to encourage refugees to stay close to their home country, we must recognise that there is no safe place for them to hide. It is foolhardy for us to put our heads in the ground and to imagine that if refugees stay there they will be safe later. It is not an easy problem and I am not offering any simple answers. Indeed, there are no simple answers, and it would be false of the Opposition to suggest that there are. We must show some flexibility.

Mr. Rogers: We are not suggesting that.

Lady Olga Maitland: None the less, that impression was given; forgive me if I got the wrong impression.

Mr. Rogers: I never suggested that there was an easy option. I told the Minister that I agreed entirely that the decisions that needed to be taken were extremely complicated and difficult. The hon. Lady is misrepresenting Labour's position.

Lady Olga Maitland: I thank the hon. Gentleman. At least we have been able to clear up the matter to some extent.
I support the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack), who was concerned that in deploying our troops we were putting "Options for Change" under strain. I hope that "Options for Change" is not so set in concrete that we cannot take a more flexible view, should the need arise.
I pay tribute to our troops. I have heard wonderful reports of their enthusiasm, professionalism and desire to get up and go and to serve in a humanitarian role, which is a new role for them. Their role is not just to help aid get through to those who are desperate; their mere presence is a comfort to those who are under pressure and it is tempting for them to hope that our troops would open fire on their behalf. It is important that we keep a clear head about what we expect of our troops. We cannot confuse their humanitarian work with what I call their pro-active fighting work: the two do not mix. As hon. Members have said, if our troops were involved in more than self-defence, there would be consequences for the civilians whom they are trying to protect. It is easy to say, "We must do something and fight at all costs", but it is important to


realise the consequences: for example, the Red Cross could not continue to supply aid, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees would be affected and there would be no one to protect the convoys.
It is important that we get our priorities right. The United Nations is saying, "Let us put lives before guns as we face a cold winter." We must also consider air strikes. What kind of air strikes are we talking about? Air strikes may encourage more fighting.
We definitely have not reached the point where we can say "No, never" to any other course of action. We must monitor the situation and reconsider it in six months. I take the point that was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South about the art and meaning of deterrence. History shows that it can work, and it could work again. The message that we must send to the Serbians is that unacceptable damage could be inflicted—I am not saying definitely, because that is the art of deterrence—and that, despite what they think, they may not get away with it so much in the future. That is an international decision, not a United Kingdom decision. We must realise that there are agonies that the whole Community will have to face.
I understand the sense of frustration. I remember that, when the first break-up of the former Yugoslavia began, my mother, who is a Serb and realistic about what is happening, said, "Remember 1914. It will all explode all over again. Somehow we shall have to alert people to the character of the Balkans. The people there are not logical as one would expect people in Europe to be. They have their own culture, their own anger and their own pain. Realise that it is not a problem that will just fade away".
One of the mistakes that we made is that we gave the wrong message to the aggressors in Serbia. We sent a message saying, "Perhaps you can get away with your ill-gotten gains." That is the responsibility of the international community and we now have to live with the consequences.
It is important that we back the new endeavours to impose sanctions. It is important that we ensure that they really work and that the Serbians feel the bite and the anger. We must ensure that the people of Yugoslavia realise that their government is at stake. It is important that we ensure that the sanctions work because they have failed so far. The United Nations has become a laughing stock in the sanctions-busting game. To see the Greek oil tankers trundling through is offensive to common decency. I welcome all the endeavours to bring the problem under control.
I conclude on the important point that a political solution is the only solution that will finally work in Yugoslavia. It is, therefore, important that we look hard and clearly at the man who is perpetrating the atrocities and at the man who is the oppressor—Slobodan Milosevic. Milosevic is now under pressure. There will be elections on 20 December. We in the west have a moral duty to back the pro-democracy movement—to back Milan Panic who has so bravely tried to stand up to the man who brought him into power in Yugoslavia.
We should give the pro-democracy movement the moral support it deserves. Representatives from DEPOS —the pro-democracy movement—are coming to London next week. We should be able to say, "Go back to

Yugoslavia. You are not forgotten. We back you all the way." There is only one way in which to bring peace in the Balkans. We must ensure that Slobodan Milosevic cannot continue his evil work for the future.

Sir Russell Johnston: I am sorry that the debate has been so short. We have heard some good speeches, but there is so much more to say and so many more questions to ask.
There are four differences between our motion and the Government amendment. The first is a question of emphasis. The Government congratulate themselves. We say that what they have done is too little and too late. The second is the question of military intervention, especially air strikes, to which various hon. Members have referred. The third is the question of air cover for our troops, in which we might include the issue of the so-called blockades or non-blockades in the Adriatic and on the Danube. The fourth is the question of refugees. I will deal with each in turn, taking up points made by hon. Members on the way. I will turn in conclusion to the question of Kosovo and Macedonia.
When we consider not simply the present dreadful position but the history of the European Community's involvement and the attitudes expressed by the British Government at various stages of the Yugoslavian tragedy, we must realise that to say that the House "congratulates" —the amendment says "notably" congratulates—the Government is extraordinary. The hon. Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) made a quite excellent speech. In his downbeat way, he said that what the Government had done was really rather inadequate—and that was putting it very mildly.
From the very beginning, when I told the Minister of State in May 1991 that the European Community should perhaps take on a mediation role or even provide a peacekeeping force, the Minister said:
I do not think that the European Community should play such a role."—[Official Report, 22 May 1991; Vol. 191, c. 919.]
That did not show a great deal of foresight, and it was not very long afterwards that Lord Carrington was appointed.
The British Government also resisted the recognition of Slovenia and Croatia. They suggested that "premature" recognition would worsen the conflict. As Jonathan Eyal, director of studies at the Royal United Services Institute, wrote in The Independent today:
Croatia and Slovenia are independent only because they were prepared to fight for their freedom.
Let us face it: the Government—and the European Community—would certainly have been prepared to watch them being crushed by the JNA.
I respond badly to the Minister of State for the Armed Forces, who responded to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell), talking once more about factions in what was Yugoslavia. That is a denial of what has happened over the past year and a half. The hon. Member for Staffordshire, South put it very clearly. Of course there have been atrocities by the Croats and there have been atrocities by the Muslims. However, there has been no concerted policy. As far as I am aware, there has been no siege of Serbian towns by Muslims or by Croats. As the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Ms. Hoey) put it extremely effectively, this has by and large been a Serbian war of aggression within Yugoslavia. To try to be even handed about the matter is not to face reality.
The Government amendment significantly does not refer to military intervention one way or the other. However, the Minister of State spoke about it at length. We argued for the use of air power to relieve the siege of Osijek in December 1991. It was clear then where the aggressors were and what they had. The Croats had no heavy guns, tanks or rockets. They were surrounded and were being pounded to pieces, as Vukovar already had been. It would have been possible to use air power then, and if we had used it there would have been no siege of Sarajevo.
Both the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) said that it was clear very early on to the Serbs that no one was prepared to act to stop them. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fife, North-East made that point when he intervened in the speech of the hon. Member for Rhondda. If one tells an aggressor, "We are not going to do anything to stop you", the aggressor will continue. That is straightforward and simple.
I appeared on one of those ITV "Comment" programmes on 10 June. I said that the situation in Sarajevo had to be stopped and my words echoed those of the hon. Member for Vauxhall. I said:
In Sarajevo, people are in the cellars, without electricity, water or food. If you have children, think of what that would be like … It is clear that Milosevic only understands force. I think the European Community through the UN now has no alternative but to consider this and most urgently. They should say to Milosevic, 'unless this siege is lifted and the shelling stopped within 48 hours, aircraft from the West will destroy these artillery positions'".
I am not saying that only now; I have said it before. If we had done that then, it would have stopped matters.
Even when we went to the G7 summit in July, only Britain was against even the consideration of military intervention. Mitterrand was in favour, despite the earlier support that the French gave the Serbs, and Kohl was in favour. All right, we know perfectly well that the Germans are excluded by their constitution from external involvement in that way, but they certainly showed in respect of the Gulf that they were prepared to pay, and that is going to change. That constitution was put on them by us, so let us not start blaming them for it.
On the closure of air space, as recently as 15 May the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs wrote to me, saying:
I do not think an aerial blockade of Serbia would be right.
That has been the pattern of "too little too late" all along. As has been said, we have, apparently, a holding closure of Bosnian air space. It has not been breached; I do not dispute that. However, we allowed the dropping of cluster bombs by the Bosnian-Serb air force on civilians, and I am sure that we could have prevented it.

Mr. Rogers: That was a point of difference between the Minister and myself. As I understand it, the Minister said that we do not have the capability in the theatre to take such action as is being proposed. The Government should address that matter urgently.

Sir Russell Johnston: I do not think that that is the case, but never mind. Nevertheless, we are now closing air space when that is much less relevant than it was. What is relevant is that, as various hon. Members have pointed out, with the breach of sea space in the Adriatic and up the Danube oil and military hardware have come, and what

have we done about that? "Too little, too late" is a fair description. There is certainly no cause for congratulation, far less notable congratulation.
The Government's amendment
welcomes Her Majesty's Government's response to the refugee problem".
For a Government who have just introduced a visa system for Bosnia without even the means of getting visas, who have taken in only a comparatively small number and who have not made any direct contribution—although I accept that they have made a contribution through the European Community and refugee organisations to poor countries such as Croatia and Hungary who have taken in an enormous number, or, for that matter, given proper credit to the Federal Republic of Germany for its huge contribution of about 260,000 to 270,000—that is terribly complacent. Not much was said about what else would be done. "Sharing" is what we said. The Federal Republic of Germany, as the Minister knows, has suggested that the European Community, of which we are still the President, should try to work out some allocations.
The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks) said that there are many refugees in many places all over the world. I know that. One cannot do everything, but that does not preclude the fact that we are concerned that people have been burnt out of their houses and are staggering helplessly through the snow. May I tell the hon. Gentleman what happens in the Federal Republic of Germany? He asked, "Where are they going to go? They are going to congregate around London." The Germans have constructed camps all over the federal republic, and they are related to the size of the towns in question so that the burden is not concentrated in one place. Central Government take responsibility rather than offload it on to the Lander Government. So the hon. Gentleman's was not a reasonable argument.
The hon. Member for Rhondda was right: the action that we are taking is not the action of a country which is rightly proud of its civilisation. The 186 people in buses, of which we are letting in six, who have been mentioned sum up how disgraceful this all is. Rightly, the debate has focused on such people, but they are a tiny drop in a great ocean of misery.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Fife, North-East —[HON. MEMBERS: "He is not right hon."] I am anticipating, perhaps. In any event, my hon. and learned Friend spoke of the dangers and challenges that face British troops. Neither he nor I understands why it is not possible to provide combat air cover, operating out of Italy. Not so long ago we were told that we could counteract vast hordes of Russians, pounding through central Europe. Now we cannot produce the aircraft to take out a few tanks. Strange.
I should like to know about the difference between the British role and that of the French. The British role seems to be exclusively to protect humanitarian convoys in dangerous circumstances brought about especially by the recent push by the Serbs. But in the little north-western enclave of Bihac the French are in the business of keeping out the Serbs—they appear to have a combat role there. That is puzzling, since I had thought that the role of all United Nations forces should be the same. I am not arguing against the French action: I just want to know what the difference is.
The siege of the great cities and the ethnic cleansing must be stopped, and if that means air strikes, so be it.


Europe has been slow and fearful. My right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown)—he is sitting behind me: one should always be concerned if the leader is sitting behind one—and I visited the heights above Sarajevo and saw the gun emplacements. The Minister said that they could be moved. Of course, they could be, but they can also be pinpointed. The guns stand above the vast bowl in which Sarajevo lies, and I still think that action could be taken against them.
It is certainly hypocrisy to go on about the integrity of Bosnia while allowing it to be gutted. That integrity no longer exists—or hardly. The Evening Standard tonight says:
They were a pitiful sight on the road to Travnik, now the only town between the British base and Serbian positions. They were shelled as they tried to get through Turbe and … there were scores of casualties.
Many herded their livestock as they ran. One farmer put a calf, wounded by shrapnel and apparently close to death, on a cart carrying his family.
That is what is happening. Certainly, it is all terribly difficult. There will soon be nothing left of Bosnia—there is little left already. We are already too late to stop many deaths in the besieged enclaves. The scale of the intervention is too limited, but we should still try.
There has been talk at the United Nations of a war crimes tribunal, but that has since disappeared from the agenda. What has happened to it?
The Government should forthwith review their policy on refugees. That means taking more of them than we have hitherto. We are taking proportionately far fewer than Sweden, Luxembourg and many other countries. That means taking more refugees, and producing more money to help, because a massive tragedy is taking place next door to us. The only sensible way forward is a sharing arrangement through the European Community.
Kosovo and Macedonia are certainly the next areas of great danger. In saying that I am not overlooking the difficulties of the Hungarians in Vojvodina. There are real difficulties there, and we recognise that, but we are not able to cover every issue this night.
Lord Owen's stance on Kosovo—which I heard him spell out on 3 October, when he addressed the Council of Europe, and which the Secretary of State subsequently confirmed, in a written answer to me on 19 October, as Government policy—is wrong. The stance is wrong in its practical consequences, and it is morally indefensible. To exclude the right of the 90 per cent. Albanian majority to self-determination if they want it after more than a decade of suppression by 8 per cent. of Serbs is not sustainable.
When I attended the unofficial election held by the Kosovan Albanians on 24 May—and spent an hour in a Serbian police station—I saw an admirable display of peaceful protest. I do not know how long that will hold. I do not think that it will be for long.
When I and my right hon. Friend the leader of the Liberal Democrats saw President Cosic of the rump Yugoslavia in Belgrade in August, we understood that he would accept United Nations monitors. Many more should be sent, and the Government should do something about that now.
When there is a final conference to resolve the issue, as there will be eventually, it should be made clear that the right of Kosovo to self-determination, if the people so wish, has to be accepted.
Macedonia should be recognised and given economic aid. It has taken the punishment of sanctions more than any of the other countries. It is untenable that Greece should be the country to stop that happening when the United States, at the United Nations meeting in New York last week, pinpointed Greece as massively breaching the oil embargo to Serbia and Montenegro. I am not merely saying this now—I said it in July: the Government are wrong in that.
I have two final, long-term questions; we should remember the long term. First, what is Government thinking on a European or Euro-United Nations peacekeeping force? The Bosnian problem will not be the last that we have to face in that area. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs told me on 15 May:
I do not expect the fighting to end until the factions lose their appetite for war.
If one deals in that sort of futile hand-wringing that is okay, but I think that we should have some ideas about peacekeeping.
Secondly, last year, in the Council of Europe, I argued that its remit should be widened from individual to collective breaches of human rights; in other words, to create obligations in respect of minority groups. I understand that France, Spain and the United Kingdom have been particularly opposed to any moves in that direction. Why?
We shall divide the House tonight, but not because we want to. It is because we do not think that our country has acted as it should in a terrible crisis—it is our country and not merely the Government's, although I notice that they sometimes do not make much distinction—and we want to put on record our deep unhappiness.

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Douglas Hogg): This is an important debate which deals with what is probably the greatest tragedy in post-war European history in which about 2,400 British soldiers are now engaged. It is a war in which tens of thousands have been killed, hundreds of thousands displaced, and serious crimes have been committed. We must concede that no early solution is in sight.
As is to be expected with such a motion, the debate has been wide-ranging and I am conscious that I cannot respond to all the points made. However, the debate could be reduced to three main themes: first, the general policy being pursued by the Government and other European Governments from the start of the crisis, when Slovenia and Croatia announced their independence, until now; secondly, the presence of British troops operating in what was Yugoslavia, the circumstances that surround their deployment, and how we can tackle the humanitarian crisis that they and we face; thirdly, how we hope to bring about a political settlement in what was Yugoslavia. In responding to the specific points raised by hon. Members, I shall try to remain within the framework that I have just identified.
I wish to consider the policy that has been pursued from the outbreak of the crisis until now and, in particular, to respond to some of the points made by my hon. and right hon. Friends. I shall deal with two points: first, the role of Serbia; and secondly, the suggestion that we should have used force in a pre-emptive way. My hon. Friend the


Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack), the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Ms. Hoey) and others focused on those points.
It is absolutely clear that Serbia is primarily responsible for what has happened and is now happening in the former Yugoslavia. That is not to say that others have not committed atrocities but I concede that the primary responsibility lies with the Serbians in Serbia and Bosnia. However, we must keep in mind the important proviso that, although I regard Milosevic as a powerful influence behind what is happening in Bosnia, I believe that neither he nor Karadzic have total control over what is happening there. If one needed evidence of that, one could simply remark that the assurances that Milosevic gave regarding the removal of aircraft were not adhered to by General Mladic. Although Milosevic bears a great deal of responsibility and therefore so does Serbia, war lords in Bosnia are pursuing their own policies and objectives.
I do not believe that, by using the kind of military force that has been referred to, we would have stopped or could now stop the conflict. I accept that that could legitimately be disputed, and one can only give one's opinion. That is my opinion, partly because I do not think that Serbia is totally responsible for what is happening in Bosnia—separate leaders have separate policies—partly because the nature of the conflict does not admit of the military action in the middle east two years ago, and partly for the powerful reason that, once the United Nations has used force in that way, it will disqualify itself from the range of other functions that we all deem to be important, notably the supply of humanitarian aid and the brokering role.

Mr. Rogers: If the Minister is ascribing good intentions to Karadzic and Milosevic, the best thing to do is to get them to join us in putting down those warlords who seem to be out of their control.

Mr. Hogg: The hon. Gentleman misinterprets me. I did not say that Karadzic or Milosevic have good intentions because I do not believe that for a moment. I do not think that they have total control over the warlords in Bosnia, many of whom have even worse intentions. That is a different point.

Mr. Ashdown: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Mr. Hogg: No. I should like to deal with the main issue raised by the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) and I shall allow an intervention if it is material.
The hon. and learned Gentleman asked many important questions about troop deployment, air cover, exclusion zones, the size of the force and so on. The present force numbers 2,400 and not 2,600 but that is a small point. At present we have no intention of increasing that force and our deployment was for 12 months. We hope that at the end of that time it will be possible to stop the deployment, but we shall have to examine the situation in Bosnia at that time. Therefore, I cannot say whether we shall extend the deployment beyond the initial 12 months.
My right hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces dealt with the rules of engagement. Our soldiers will have the ability to defend themselves. They do not have to wait until they are fired upon, nor do they have to return similar fire because they have a range of heavy weapons that are known to the House. They will not have

to seek authority up the line. The soldiers on the ground are authorised to use reasonable minimum force to defend themselves and—this answers another of the hon. and learned Gentleman's questions—those for whom they have a direct responsibility at that time.
The hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East asked about air power. Two quite separate issues are involved and they were also mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack). I shall deal first with what I have been calling the air exclusion zone and then with the question whether United Kingdom troops will be able to call for air cover to resist ground attack. United Nations Security Council resolution 786 authorises the no-fly zone and provides for an increase in the United Nations peacekeeping force to monitor the bases. Those forces are being deployed and we have no evidence of any aircraft flying combat missions since 12 October.
What happens if Serbian forces fly combat missions in breach of the resolution? The answer is that we would have to return to the Security Council for an appropriate resolution. I cannot say what would emerge, but I should be rather surprised if the Security Council were not ready to authorise the use of force in those circumstances. The Serbs had better contemplate that for their own good and in the interests of everybody else.
I was asked about air power being available to United Kingdom ground forces. The purpose of the deployment is, of course, to carry out humanitarian functions. The two that I have in mind at the moment are the convoy of humanitarian supplies and, where appropriate, the escorting of refugees. As my right hon. Friend the Minister of State made plain, it is no function of the British forces to fight their way through obstacles. If it becomes too dangerous for British forces to operate, that is to say, if the level of risk is too high with regard to the objectives, they will be pulled back either to defensive positions or absolutely.
We have not provided air cover of the kind to which the hon. and learned Member referred because that is relevant only to the kind of operations on which our troops are not to be asked to embark. If it reaches that level of risk, they will be pulled back. There is another point. Air cover of the kind for which he is calling is appropriate only if it is continuous—that is to say, large numbers of aircraft flying up and down the column. That is not what we are contemplating. Moreover, says I, warming to my theme, the risk that we are facing is mortar fire or rocket attack from within urban areas. I cannot believe that Tornados or other aircraft are an appropriate response to that kind of risk.

Mr. Menzies Campbell: Before the right hon. and learned Gentleman burns himself out, will he contemplate the following circumstances, which are not so extravagant as to be unreasonable? Let us imagine British troops engaged in the escort of refugees, as was proposed at the weekend. They are ambushed and encircled. Withdrawal in the terms used both by the right hon. and learned Gentleman and the Minister of State for the Armed Forces is not possible. In such circumstances, why should not the senior commander on the ground have available to him —not flying up and down the column—from nearby NATO air bases, forces from which he can call down air strikes so that he can effect the withdrawal that the Minister postulates?

Mr. Hogg: The hon. and learned Gentleman needs to contemplate another point. We are not in the business of fighting through obstacles. We are in the business of negotiating passage. Anything else is bound to fail because it will run to a war. Therefore, the British troops will have to assess in advance whether what they are contemplating doing can be done with reasonable safety having regard to the forces that are available. If they cannot do it, they will not do it.

Mr. Macdonald: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Hogg: No. I cannot give way because I have only four minutes left.
I shall now address one or two specific points, of which perhaps the most important is sanctions. I think that the House misunderstands the position. Much of the sanctions regime has been very successful. Serbian trade is down 40 per cent., industrial production is down 50 per cent., unemployment is up 60 per cent. and inflation is acute. Therefore, the pressure on the Serbian economy is real, but that said, I accept that there has been a greater flow of oil and petrol into Serbia than we would wish. We are seeking to address that, in two ways.
First, and this is the product of the United Kingdom presidency, we are employing sanctions monitors in various adjoining countries. Secondly, and much more important, is the resolution being adopted today, which will deal with transhipment. There are two kinds of transhipment for these purposes—down the Danube, and through Serbia to other countries. Our purpose is to stop both and to enforce the provisions that will be contained in that regime. This will make a considerable difference to the availability of oil and petrol in Serbia. We shall come back to this if we deem it necessary because we must deny oil and petrol to the Serbian Government.
I shall deal now with the visas issue, which has troubled a number of right hon. and hon. Members for reasons that I well understand. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary made the position clear on 5 November. What we have decided is that, in common with all other EC countries of note, a visa regime is justified for the kind of reasons that my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks) outlined. But at the same time we have said that there will be a regime for admitting persons to this country who are identified by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, the ICRC.

Mr. Archy Kirkwood: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.

Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:—

The House divided: Ayes 37, Noes 166.

Division No. 87]
[9.59 pm


AYES


Ainger, Nick
Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)


Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy
Dafis, Cynog


Barnes, Harry
Flynn, Paul


Bayley, Hugh
Foster, Don (Bath)


Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)
Godman, Dr Norman A.


Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)
Hall, Mike


Carlile, Alexander (Montgomry)
Harvey, Nick


Cormack, Patrick
Hoey, Kate


Cryer, Bob
Hood, Jimmy





Hutton, John
Steel, Rt Hon Sir David


Johnston, Sir Russell
Taylor, Matthew (Truro)


Jones, leuan Wyn (Ynys Môn)
Trimble, David


Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)
Tyler, Paul


Kennedy, Charles (Ross,C&S)
Wallace, James


Llwyd, Elfyn
Wicks, Malcolm


Lynne, Ms Liz
Wigley, Dafydd


Macdonald, Calum



Madden, Max
Tellers for the Ayes:


Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)
Mr. Simon Hughes and Mr. Archy Kirkwood.


Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll Bute)



Short, Clare





NOES


Alexander, Richard
Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)


Amess, David
Greenway, John (Ryedale)


Ancram, Michael
Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)


Arbuthnot, James
Hague, William


Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)
Hamilton, Rt Hon Archie (Epsom)


Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)
Hargreaves, Andrew


Ashby, David
Harris, David


Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)
Haselhurst, Alan


Baker, Nicholas (Dorset North)
Hawkins, Nick


Bates, Michael
Hawksley, Warren


Beresford, Sir Paul
Heald, Oliver


Blackburn, Dr John G.
Heathcoat-Amory, David


Body, Sir Richard
Hendry, Charles


Bonsor, Sir Nicholas
Hicks, Robert


Booth, Hartley
Hill, James (Southampton Test)


Boswell, Tim
Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas (G'tham)


Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)
Horam, John


Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)


Bowis, John
Hughes Robert G. (Harrow W)


Brandreth, Gyles
Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)


Brazier, Julian
Hunter, Andrew


Bright, Graham
Jenkin, Bernard


Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)
Jessel, Toby


Browning, Mrs. Angela
Jones, Robert B. (W Hertfdshr)


Burns, Simon
Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine


Burt, Alistair
Kilfedder, Sir James


Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Kirkhope, Timothy


Carrington, Matthew
Knapman, Roger


Carttiss, Michael
Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)


Chaplin, Mrs Judith
Knight, Greg (Derby N)


Chapman, Sydney
Knight, Dame Jill (Bir'm E'st'n)


Clappison, James
Kynoch, George (Kincardine)


Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)
Lawrence, Sir Ivan


Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ruclif)
Legg, Barry


Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey
Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)


Colvin, Michael
Lidington, David


Congdon, David
Lightbown, David


Conway, Derek
Lilley, Rt Hon Peter


Coombs, Simon (Swindon)
Lord, Michael


Cope, Rt Hon Sir John
Luff, Peter


Cran, James
MacGregor, Rt Hon John


Currie, Mrs Edwina (S D'by'ire)
MacKay, Andrew


Davies, Quentin (Stamford)
McLoughlin, Patrick


Davis, David (Boothferry)
Madel, David


Day, Stephen
Maitland, Lady Olga


Deva, Nirj Joseph
Malone, Gerald


Devlin, Tim
Mans, Keith


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Martin, David (Portsmouth S)


Dover, Den
Merchant, Piers


Duncan, Alan
Milligan, Stephen


Duncan-Smith, Iain
Montgomery, Sir Fergus


Elletson, Harold
Nelson, Anthony


Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)
Neubert, Sir Michael


Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)
Nicholson, David (Taunton)


Fabricant, Michael
Norris, Steve


Fenner, Dame Peggy
Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth


Fishburn, Dudley
Pickles, Eric


Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)
Porter, David (Waveney)


Forth, Eric
Powell, William (Corby)


Freeman, Roger
Richards, Rod


French, Douglas
Rifkind, Rt Hon. Malcolm


Gale, Roger
Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)


Gallie, Phil
Ryder, Rt Hon Richard


Gillan, Cheryl
Shaw, David (Dover)


Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles
Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)


Gorst, John
Sims, Roger






Skinner, Dennis
Vaughan, Sir Gerard


Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)
Walden, George


Speed, Sir Keith
Waller, Gary


Spencer, Sir Derek
Ward, John


Spink, Dr Robert
Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)


Sproat, Iain
Waterson, Nigel


Stephen, Michael
Watts, John


Stern, Michael
Wells, Bowen


Stewart, Allan
Wheeler, Sir John


Streeter, Gary
Whittingdale, John


Sweeney, Walter
Widdecombe, Ann


Sykes, John
Wilkinson, John


Taylor, Ian (Esher)
Willetts, David


Thomason, Roy
Wilshire, David


Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)
Yeo, Tim


Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)



Trend, Michael
Tellers for the Noes:


Trotter, Neville
Mr. Irvine Patrick and Mr. Tim Wood.


Twinn, Dr Ian

Question accordingly negatived.

Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 30 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.

MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to he agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House congratulates the European Community and notably Her Majesty's Government in its capacity as Presidency on its unremitting work for a solution of the crisis in the former Yugoslavia; is appalled by the continuing slaughter in Bosnia-Herzegovina; is deeply concerned about the impact of winter in Sarajevo and other cities and the need to ensure the safe passage of relief supplies to them; expresses its warm support for the work of British troops in providing protective support for relief convoys and is reassured to know that they will have the full right to self-defence; condemns the barbarous policy of ethnic cleansing; calls for the effective policing of the Danube to enforce sanctions; welcomes Her Majesty's Government's response to the refugee problem; is deeply concerned that the conflict may spread to Kosovo and Macedonia; and makes clear its strong support for the work of the international conference on the former Yugoslavia under the leadership of Lord Owen and Mr. Cyrus Vance.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.

TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING (SCOTLAND)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(5) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.),

That the draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications and Deemed Applications) (Scotland) Amendment (No. 2) Regulations 1992, which were laid before this House on 28th October, be approved.—[Mr. David Davis.]

Question agreed to.

TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(5) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.),,
That the draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications and Deemed Applications) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 1992, which were laid before this House on 28th October, be approved.—[Mr. David Davis.]

Question agreed to.

INSURANCE

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(5) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.),
That the draft Insurance Companies (Amendment) Regulations 1992, which were laid before this House on 30th October, be approved.—[Mr. David Davis.]

Question agreed to.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS

CULTURE IN THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 102(9) (European Standing Committees),
That this House takes note of European Community Document No. 6224/92 and the supplementary Explanatory Memorandum submitted by the Department of National Heritage on 22nd October 1992, relating to Community cultural action; and supports the Government's objective of respecting subsidiarity and focusing Community action in the cultural sector in those areas where there is scope for clearly targeted co-operative action that generates added value at European level and emphasises the richness and diversity of the European cultural heritage both at national and regional levels.—[Mr. David Davis.]

Question agreed to.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Ordered,
That Dr. Gavin Strang be discharged from the Science and Technology Committee and Lynne Jones be added to the Committee.—[Mr. Dixon, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]

PETITION

Disabled Persons

Mr. Hugh Bayley: I present a petition signed by my constituent, Maureen Brownbridge, and 240 other residents of York and neighbouring areas. The petition is sponsored by Mencap, and seeks a change in the law to outlaw discrimination on the basis of people's disabilities —in the same way that other legislation prohibits discrimination on the grounds of gender or race.
The petition reads as follows:
To the honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament Assembled. The humble petition of York area residents sheweth: That people who are disabled or perceived to be disabled (for whatever reason) are continually having to face widespread unjustifiable discrimination. That legislation is necessary to outlaw this discrimination. Therefore your Petitioners pray that your honourable House introduce legislation to outlaw unjustifiable discrimination against people who are disabled or are perceived to be disabled as soon as possible. And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

To lie upon the Table.

Small Businesses

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. David Davis.]

Mr. Michael Bates: I am grateful for the opportunity to talk about the banks' code of practice, and in particular about the speed and extent to which interest rate changes are being passed on to my constituents—especially businesses.
I believe that the policy presented over the past two or three years by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer—a policy of reducing interest rates—represents the best way of stimulating economic activity. It is a welcome move, and has been supported by hon. Members on both sides of the House. Over the past two years, base rates have fallen from some 15 per cent. to 7 per cent., providing a welcome boost to industry, to small businesses and to the consumer.
Along with many of my hon. Friends—a handsome number of whom are present this evening—I am worried about the findings of a recent survey. The survey shows that, although base rates have fallen by some eight percentage points, the cost of borrowing for small businesses has fallen by only about 2·66 per cent. over the corresponding period. If we take the figure that is being widely used, each reduction of one percentage point in the base rate provides the economy with a £1 billion boost. It is also said that that produces a saving of some £200 million for small business.
Given that the survey is accurate—I have no reason to doubt that; the figures have been confirmed by people who have written to me from many parts of the country, and I am sure that my hon. Friends' mail bags contain the same information—the economy is being short-changed to the tune of some £5·5 billion in terms of interest rate reductions. That is twice the transport budget. Moreover, small business is being short-changed to the tune of some £1 billion. I want to make it clear to the banks and other lending institutions concerned that that apparently widespread practice is unacceptable.

Mr. Nigel Evans: A small business in my constituency started up in 1990 paying interest at 3 per cent. over base rate in June that year. When it closed down in May 1992 and it looked into its charges a month later, it found that it had been paying up to 9·2 per cent. above base rate, having not been consulted by the banks involved. Much of the confusion involving businesses arises from the fact they simply do not know by how much the interest that they are paying exceeds the base rate. Ought not the banks to include in statements, on a regular basis, the amount of interest that they are charging businesses?

Mr. Bates: My hon. Friend has raised a pertinent point, with which I shall deal later. He speaks with great experience, having been in business himself and become acquainted with the problems encountered by small businesses in their relations with banks.
A constituent of mine, who runs a small business, received a letter from a bank, headed "Interest rate margins". It stated:
We are presently taking stock of the markedly adverse economic conditions with which all of the Banks are now having to contend, and we find that all of our major


competitors have been sharply increasing their interest rate margins across their lending books over the last year or so taking advantage of the fall in … rates … We … have found ourselves increasingly out of step, and belatedly and with a degree of regret we do feel that we now have to increase our lending margins".
When we hear from the bank chiefs, they tell us that that kind of thing does not happen now. They say that we now have banking codes of practice—even on banking charges. We see all that in nice advertisements on television. There is conclusive evidence, however—dating from only two weeks ago—that such activities are happening on an alarming scale. That evidence is backed up by the Federation of Small Business and by the Forum of Private Business, which regularly surveys some 20,000 private businesses up and down the country.
Two particular aspects in that letter cause concern. The first is the practice of applying fixed minimum lending rates—that is, above the minimum lending rate set by the Bank of England and subsequently agreed to by the high street banks. Fixed minimum lending rates can often be in the region of 10 or 11 per cent. today when bank rates should be 7 per cent. That is why many businesses are still paying 16 or 17 per cent. in interest rate charges even though base rates are 7 per cent. That is an extremely heavy burden to put on the backs of small businesses. As I said earlier, it is entirely unacceptable.

Mrs. Angela Browning: Does my hon. Friend agree that another burden that banks put on small businesses is that they often exercise the right to impose a floating charge on a loan? When businesses experience difficulties, therefore, the banks are able to pick and choose which assets should be liquidated, which results in many businesses that could have overcome their difficulties going bankrupt and having to be wound up.

Mr. Bates: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. She has made a valid point, which I know is the result of a great deal of experience and noble service with the Small Business Bureau.
My second point concerns interest rate differentials, from which we can draw another conclusion. Interest rate differentials are being used, in effect, as an insurance premium. The banks say openly that they assess risks and then increase the margin appropriately. That is a short-sighted view. If a small business borrowed a large amount of money and is therefore overdrawn at the bank, it is highly unlikely that the profitability of that business, or its chances of survival, would be improved by increasing the interest rate burden on it. We ought, surely, to be considering reducing the interest rate burden on that business. That is the best way to ensure that it stands the best chance of survival in our present difficulties and that it will be in existence in a few months' time to repay its loan and pay back some of the interest charges.
I was interested to learn today that one bank has announced that it is to abolish the practice of charging fixed interest rates and minimum lending rates. I am absolutely delighted that at the eleventh hour that bank has decided to do so. Far be it from me to suggest that nothing sobers the mind of a banker so much as the threat of adverse publicity, but if the threat of adverse publicity provokes banks to take positive action, many of my hon. Friends and I are more willing to make many more similar comments and remarks.
I have talked to a bank manager in my constituency who had worked there for 35 years—that was in the days

when bank managers looked after businesses, as opposed to being financial services providers. He said that he used interest rate differentials for one purpose only: when there was an increase in the amount of administration in connection with the handling of the account. In relation to risk, he said that there were only two types of lending—good lending and bad lending, that one lends to the good and that one avoids the bad. That seems to me to be a breath of fresh air and a bit of common sense that could well be adopted by many of the banks in their present dealings with small businesses.
Small businesses face considerable problems in their dealings with the banks. In many cases, they are held over a barrel by the bank in question. Their ability to negotiate is severely constrained. Many high street banks behave somewhat like a cartel, in that they will not accept any movement in cases where there is an overdraft or a lending problem. Their ability to move or negotiate is virtually non-existent. It therefore falls upon elected officials, politicians, Ministers and the Government to express disapproval about such action at every opportunity so that the banks are provoked into action.

Mr. Gary Streeter: Does my hon. Friend agree that a further disgrace is that small business men cannot telephone their bank manager or go to see him without being charged for the privilege and incurring an arrangement fee?

Mr. Bates: My hon. Friend makes a valid point about the excessive charges of banks. That takes us back to the point of bank charges not being thoroughly understood by the customer. Much more clarification, certainly for small business, is necessary.
Banks should realise that, by treating small businesses as equals and by entering into partnership with them, they could be of much assistance to those businesses and could help the economy to recover. That would be a welcome sign. Interest rates for credit card purchases are 26 to 30 per cent. What incentive is that to restore confidence in the high street, to bring customers back to high street shops, thereby encouraging and stimulating those necessary businesses?

Mr. Rod Richards: My hon. Friend will agree that the high street banks are flying in the face of Government policy by increasing their margins on loans. Does he agree that they are fuelling the recession by not financing perfectly sound economic proposals, in order to protect themselves, at a time when they should be expanding lending?

Mr. Bates: I agree with my hon. Friend. So many of the high street banks are behaving not like high street banks but like back street money lenders. That does no service to the banks or to their customers.
I ask my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to urge our right hon. Friend the Chancellor to call in the banks again to make their role in the economic recovery abundantly clear and to highlight the problems that have been experienced by small businesses. When my right hon. Friend the Chancellor last called in the banks, there was a flurry of activity, with hastily produced codes of practice and banking charters. I see no reason why we should not see a similar flurry of activity, which not only might benefit


customers, small business and the economy but would do much to enhance in many people's eyes the tarnished reputation of many high street banks.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Anthony Nelson): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Bates) on an outstanding speech on a subject that is of much interest to hon. Members on both sides of the House.

Mr. Nigel Evans: This is an extremely important debate that has attracted interest among many Conservative Members, yet if one looks across at the empty Benches opposite one sees that no Labour Member is present and only one Liberal Democrat. That is shameful, because Opposition Members talk about the recession, the pressure on employment and jobs, yet not one is present tonight.

Mr. Nelson: My hon. Friend is right. I was trying to be generous. The hon. Member for Rochdale (Ms. Lynne) is a worthy opponent and we are delighted that she is here today.
My hon. Friend the Member for Langbaurgh has tonight proved himself a doughty champion of small businesses. He has spoken for small businesses throughout the country—for the proprietors, for the directors and for the many who work for them. We all know from our constituencies that many of them have been through a tough time in the past couple of years. Many undoubtedly feel aggrieved on occasions about the treatment that they have received from the banks. We know that because people have written to us. My hon. Friend put the case so well this evening that I am sure that the message will go out to all the banks which are, I am sure, following this debate.
It is a sign of his power of persuasion and of the compelling arguments mustered by my hon. Friend that not only am I here, in a minor capacity, to answer the debate, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave undertakings to the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee today, the Prime Minister has been making a speech on this very subject at the Mansion house tonight and, as my hon. Friend mentioned, a bank has already taken action. That is a remarkable response to my hon. Friend's initiative in obtaining this debate. I congratulate him wholeheartedly.
The interventions by my hon. Friends the Members for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), for Tiverton (Mrs. Browning), for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Streeter) and for Clwyd, North-West (Mr. Richards) were also extremely good. They reflected the widespread concern which is evident from the letters I receive as Economic Secretary and which goes well beyond the House.
My hon. Friend the Member for Langbaurgh spoke about the economy and about small businesses being short changed. He spoke especially about his concern about the setting of fixed minimum lending rates. He said, rightly, that the banks must be the friends and not the foes of small businesses. He called for the banks to be called in, which is exactly what my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced today to the Select Committee.
I know that there has been especial concern in recent weeks about reports that some banks have been failing to

pass on to their small business customers the full benefits of the reductions in interest rates. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has already made plain his wish that the banks should pass on the benefit of interest rate cuts, not only to small business customers, but to all clients who borrow money. I am pleased to have the opportunity tonight to reiterate my right hon. Friend's views.
The exercise that the Treasury and the Bank of England conducted last year found that banks do pass on cuts automatically to customers whose borrowings are linked to base rate, although there was clear evidence that banks seek to widen margins if they feel that the risk—to— reward ratio has moved against them, when facilities come up for renewal or when customers seek to increase their loans. That is classic territory for commercial negotiation, and not for Government intervention.
Banks cannot be expected to lend unprofitably, but given that the recession has increased the risks for many small businesses, it is in neither side's interests for the burden on the customer to be increased to unsustainable levels. The price for borrowing must reflect the needs of both banks and customers, and both sides need to recognise that.
There is evidence that that recognition is happening. In the face of some fierce pressure from the media, NatWest and Barclays announced only last week that they were reducing the interest rate floors which they had previously included in lending agreements with small businesses. Although that is not an area in which the Government can take direct action, we take seriously the complaints that are levelled at the banks, even if they concern matters for the market to solve. As my right hon. Friend announced to the Select Committee this afternoon, he will ask the Bank of England to have another look at the area. He intends to go through it again himself with the chairmen of the individual banks. I hope that that satisfies my hon. Friend.
That said, there is evidence that market forces work, as the announcements by NatWest and Barclays show. Those are not the only recent examples.

Mr. David Nicholson: I hope that the Chancellor, in pressing the point on the banks, will also stress to them that we are increasingly entering a highly competitive European market and that British banks should consider how European banks treat their small business customers.

Mr. Nelson: My hon. Friend introduces a most important dimension into the debate and I am obliged to him. Incidentally, this is not the only occasion on which my hon. Friend has raised the issue. He has spoken of it on several other occasions and I am grateful for what he has reiterated tonight.
The issue of the banks' treatment of small businesses is not a new one. As part of last year's Treasury and Bank of England investigation into the subject, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor asked the chairmen of the major banks to consider drawing up a code for their small business customers. As my right hon. Friend made clear to the House in July last year, he had told the chairmen that the very least that customers had a right to expect from their banks was adherence to seven basic principles, which were: that the terms and conditions of accounts should be fair and reasonable; that the terms and conditions should be notified to customers in advance—a point made in an


intervention this evening; that customers should be given a full written statement of the standard tariffs of charges applicable to their account; that they should be specifically warned in advance about any charges not covered by the standard tariff; that customers should be given a clear explanation of the basis on which interest is to be charged; that terms and conditions of an account—other than the interest rate—should not be altered without adequate prior notice in writing; finally, that customers should be given a clear explanation of how complaints may be made about decisions taken at local level.
The bank chairmen, in response, assured my right hon. Friend that those principles were already reflected in their existing policy, but undertook to see what more could be done. Since then, six banks have produced codes of banking practice for their business customers, and another, the Bank of Scotland, one covering all customers. All of them are clearly written in plain English and reflect the seven principles.
It was not my right hon. Friend's objective when he met the bank chairmen last year to persuade them to produce

identical codes. Indeed, many of them are different. Business customers can now look at the services on offer and decide which best meets their needs.
Some of the letters I receive, however, have suggested that the Government should go further and carry out their own review of banks' codes—either because of complaints that particular banks regularly fail to live up to the teens of their codes or because the codes do not go far enough. I do not believe that that is a suitable job for the Government. Our role is to ensure that a framework is in place which encourages open competition and allows small business customers a choice. Having played a major role in encouraging banks to draw up their codes, the Government feel that customers themselves must make it clear to the banks if the codes do not meet their requirements.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-four minutes to Eleven o'clock.